Chapter 29: Proprietor
Cid Kramer knew something was happening when he sensed a faint thrumming running through the entire structure of Garden, as if a string was being vibrated just beneath the floors. He looked around in confusion, and then grinned as he realized that Squall had found the defensive system of the ancient shelter the Garden was based on.
The floor below his feet suddenly began glowin, and Cid took a step back in confusion as it resolved itself into a bright white light, one which swiftly widened to encompass a wide circle across his office. Cid stared down at the light for a long moment, until suddenly, something resolved itself from within the circle.
Then Cid was rising, up toward the ceiling of his office, standing atop an old metal platform, alongside a very startled Squall, Xu, and Rinoa!
The platform stopped itself toward the top of Cid's office, and stood there for a moment, giving the quartet a fine view of the rolling green Balamb landscape stretching far below. To the west, a small cluster of dark shapes riding white contrails lanced over the hills at a low altitude. The Galbadian missiles were inbound after all!
As the quartet looked on in surprise, the ring above Garden began to spin, and then glow, emitting a bright white light as it rotated faster and faster. The ring of light became a discus, and began to drop down, descending over Garden, and in its wake, things . . . changed. Squall felt himself shifting slightly, then the floor below thrummed once more, but at a more insistent pace. Then, as the light passed below his line of sight, he saw it expand, encompassing the entire Garden grounds. To the west, the missiles loomd up even more dangerously, now clearly identifiable.
Then a column of rising dust encompassed the entire Garden, making it impossible to see out of the windows. A sudden alarm sounded from the console in front of them, and Squall felt the floor beneath him lurch, and the quartet were almost thrown from their feet as they began to move, the dust slightly thinning out as entire academy seemed to glide forward.
Squall could just barely pick out the white contrails and the burning yellow-white engine flares of the missiles as they rose into the air in a preprogrammed evasive manuver to throw off last-ditch anti-air fire, and then began to descend in a series of widely scattered strikes. For an instant, Squall thought that a pair of the missiles were going to strike them head on, but they flew just past the windows, rattling the glass with displaced air. A sudden, powerful rumble sounded from behind the Garden, then a yellow flash lit the inside of the Headmaster's office, and then Garden was past, moving on, over the green hills, a shockwave of billowing dust chasing it out. After a long moment, the academy sailed free of the dust cloud and into clear air, flying in a generally southwestern direction.
Flying!
"This is the secret?" Cid asked, shaking his head.
"Garden can fly?" Xu muttered aloud, looking below as the hills flew past below them. At the rate they were moving, the Garden looked to not only be capable of flight, but of very speedy flight as well.
Squall couldn't tell very well, but it seemed that the ring that had been directly overhead was now located below the Garden, lifting it up into the air as it flew. Even as he was seeing this, Rinoa had noticed one of the small screens on the panel had lit up. As she leaned closer, the image suddenly rose from the screen, resolving itself into a three-dimensional hologram of what could only be the transformed Garden.
It was huge, if the statistical readouts next to the structure were correct. It seemed that the entire Garden grounds had been compacted into this single, massive structure, a huge, conical white building shaped like a smooth mountain, complete with a massive but delicate-seeming fin-like tail flaring out from the rear of the structure, a huge reinforcing strut descending from the top of Garden to the tip of the tail. At its base, along the first level, the various structures had been gathered into a series of huge, rounded, bulbous segments. Below this, the Garden rapidly tapered into a long, narrow, curving segment, around which spun the ring which, judging by a readout on airflow just beneath and above the ring, was the source of propulsion and lift for the academy.
"Wow," Rinoa commented.
"Simply incredible," Cid added as he looked at the reformed Garden. "I knew that Garden was fashioned from a mobile shelter used by the survivors of the old Centra civilization, but I had no idea such technology was actually still intact after all these decades."
"Centra shelters?" Squall echoed, understanding now. When the civilization on the southern continent had been ravaged by the Lunar Cry eighty years ago, many had abandoned their homeland in great flying structures, some large enough to supposedly house small cities. While Garden was nowhere as big, it was still huge.
"Uh-oh," Xu muttered as she looked out the window. "Headmaster, we're on a collission course with Balamb!"
She was right, Squall saw immediately. While Balamb was still quite distant from their current location, Garden was en route at high speeds, and while the tapered tip of the Garden was hovering above the ground, it was barely a man's height from the dirt. It would shear clear through houses and tear a swath of destruction through the town.
"Squall, do something!" Rinoa said, and he glanced at her, not understanding immediately.
"Why me?" he demanded.
"You got it working in the first place, didn't you?" she replied, to which Squall just shook his head. He'd just been hitting random buttons. He glanced back down to the panel, and then out the front window, to see Balamb looming up even more closely. They had less than a minute before Garden plowed right through it. Even at this distance, Squall could see people looking in the flying Garden's direction, apparently awed by the spectacle of the flying academy.
"Squall, hurry!" Cid said, and he glanced back at the headmaster, angered by his insistence that he do omething about this. Shaking his head, Squall smashed a hand down on the lever in the middle of the panel. The device didn't budge.
"The hell with this!" he growled, sweeping his hands across the panel, hitting random switches and buttons, throwing another lever, and turning a dial. He looked back up, and saw that the Garden was much, much closer, almost close enough to pick out the individual people looked above in shock. He growled again and slapped more controls.
Then, without warning, the thrumming in the deck stopped and the Garden began to slow, and at the same time, turn south, away from Balamb. The people of the port town watched in shock as the Garden turned toward the ocean, the shrubbery, clothes, and hair of the populace thrown wildly about by the displaced air beneath the Garden's ring. It swept past, just barely missing the town and passing over the docks, before traveling down the beach and toward he ocean.
"Brace yourselves!" Cid shouted, grabbing onto the panel as the Garden hologram shifted slightly, the ring rotating faster and subtly reconfiguring itself. The ring began to descend into the seawater first, sliding beneath the blue carpet of the ocean, followed by the tapering central column. Then, the first level of Garden and the bulbous pods that contained those faclities touched the water, the sheer force from so much mass dropping into the ocean sending out massive waves that sent the boats on Balamb's docks bobbing wildly. However, the Garden's descent into the ocean stopped at that point, the academy floating on the seawater and rapidly moving south on its momentum. Gradually, the speed slowed, until finally, the Garden began drifting aimlessly to the south, afloat on the ocean waters.
"Thank Hyne," Cid stated as things settled down. "Good job, everybody. I think the worst is past us for now."
"So, what do we do now?" Squall asked, looking out over the ocean. "We don't have propulsion, and I don't want to try hitting random buttons again, especialy in the middle of the ocean."
"We'll just have to make do," Cid replied with a shrug. "We'll probably drift along until we find land or we figure out how to move the Garden. Until then, I suggest we all take a much-needed rest."
Squall glanced down to his outfit, still covered in dried blood and gore from Galbadian soldiers, freaks, and monsters, and couldn't help but agree.
"So much for my office," Cid commented with a chuckle. "Where am I going to change clothes now?"
--------------------
The next few days passed uneventfully, which, by an exhausted Squall's reckoning, was a good thing. The first order of business once Garden was safe was ensuring that there were no injuries or serious damages to the academy. Aside from a few minor scrapes and bruises, and one sprained ankle, the cadets and remaining SeeDs and civilian personnel were largely uninjured.
Once that was done, Squall spent fifteen hours in a much-deserved sleep. Once he woke up, he helped with superfical repairs to the Garden. He and Rinoa had worked at reintegrating the student factions, which required surprisingly little work. Apparently realizing the severity of the outside threat, the students who had been supporting the mysterious NORG and the Headmaster had reconciled their differences, though precisely why they had been in conflict in the first place remained a mystery. Cid didn't mention the subject, and the cadets who had been fighting for the Garden Master actually didn't know much about NORG or his motives, instead having simply obeyed the orders of the robed Faculty when they had begun shouting orders.
The Faculty themselves, interestingly enough, had largely vanished in the chaos.
After various issues were taken care of, and Cid had begun organizing the students and SeeDs on various neccessary duties around the Garden, not much was left to do. Squall finally got around to cleaning his clothes, stained with the blood and fluids of dozens of fallen opponents, and had hung them in the closet of his room. From there, he changed into a loose pair of black cargo pants and a white T-shirt after a quick but heavenly shower.
Once he stepped out, toweling off his hair, Squall was struck with a difficult situation: he had nothing whatsoever to do. With order being restored, and Garden safe, there wasn't anything else he needed to do at the moment.
Squall wasn't exactly familiar with boredom. As a cadet, he'd spent the majority of his time studying and training for his position as a SeeD, and he'd only become a SeeD less than two weeks ago. Even when he'd had no real tasks to do, Squall had been able to entertain himself with practice and training, which filled up the majority of his spare time.
Squall glanced to his gunblade, stored safely within its case, and considered taking it out for practice. After a moment, he decided against it. There were too many people around right now, especially in his preffered training ground, the Quad.
Sighing, Squall flopped on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. His mission was complete, excepting he still had to protect Rinoa, which was something he'd barely been able to accomplish, even after discovering Garden's secret. Those missiles had nearly ended them all.
That thought sent Squall back to the desert, and the decision to deploy the remainder of his team to the missile base. If the missiles had launched, did that mean that Selphie had failed? What had happened to her, and Quistis, and Irvine, and Zell? Were they dead, or worse, prisoners of Galbadia?
He thought about each of his comrades, and wondered how they had felt about that mission. Had he been right sendng them in? The mission had been quite clearly a suicidal job, but none of them had complained about it. All the quartet had cared about was saving Garden, so much as to volunteer their lives for a shot at a, however bleak, chance to stop the Sorceress' attack.
The Sorceress herself . . . why had she fired missiles? Squall knew she was retaliating against SeeD for the asassination attempt, but Martine's words still rang in his ears abut her intent to destroy Garden itself. Her motives were unclear, but the threat she presented was quite obvious. And Seifer . . . what was happening to him? He had thrown in with Edea, but his motives, too, remained unclear. She had promised him his dream, it seemed, but how did he believe she would fulfill that?
Squall swore then and there that he would settle the score with his old rival if they met again.
He sat up in the bed, and shook his head. He hated having nothing to do; it got him thinking too much. Okay, so he had to solve the problem.
Squall glanced around his room, and stopped as he saw a copy of Weapons Monthly sitting on his desk. He had a subscription to the magazine, which was geared more toward collectors and martial sports enthusiasts than actual soldiers, as the majority of their weapons were customized as opposed to mass-produced military hardware. But for a SeeD, it was quite a useful resource. The magazine reminded Squall of a pet project of his he'd been working on for the last year, ever since he'd gotten his hands on a copy of the first edition of Weapons Monthly.
Squall rose from the bed and crossed his room, opening his closet and taking out a metal case large enough to hold a rifle or longsword. He set the case on his desk and opened it, then removed the contents.
An intricately designed gunblade revolver aspect was the first thing Squall removed, the handle heavy with electronics and compensators for the exceptionally powerful concussive projectors and custom-made concussive-force shells the weapon demanded. After this was a set of tools for calibrating a gunblade, followed by a well-preserved copy of the first issue of Weapons Monthly, a page bookmarked. Finally, a set of focusing crystals, a shining crystal throbbing with energy, and an energy-crystal matrix generator were removed. Squall set the case on the floor, removed the tools, and opened the magazine to one of the feature articles, showing the schematics, technology, and instructions for synthesizing an incredibly powerful gunblade based around cystallized energy.
The next twenty minutes were spent in careful concentration as Squall slowly calibrated and adjusted the revolver aspect of the gunblade. That done, he carefully integrated the focusing crystals into a quartet of slots where the gun aspect in a normal gunblade fired, positioned around a triangular slot where the energy-crystal matrix generator was to be placed. After a long period of time, perhaps fifteen minutes, the last crystal slid into place, and Squall sat back, nodding to himself. He quickly aligned the crystals, which would work with the matrix generator to focus the energy of the shining crystal into a blade. Now, he needed to recalibrate the weapon to accommadate the crystals.
An hour had passed from the point where Squall had begun working on the powerful gunblade, and he had finally finished the calibration to accept the new crystals. Squall sat back in his chair, and wiped his sweating brow, glad to have finally finished this difficult step. He knew the hardest part would be in the future, in placing the matrix generator and aligning it all properly. Then he would have to integrate the energy crystal, along with several more. Then, the blade would have to be energized and crystalized, which in and of itself would be a long process, to finish it all off. He still had a long way to go to complete the gunblade, but once it was finished, it would be worth it.
"Hey."
Squall jerked in surprise, and looked back over his shoulder to see Rinoa standing behind him, looking at the halfway constructed gunblade on his desk.
"What's that?" she asked, looking back and forth between the gunblade and the schematics in the Weapons Monthly issue. Squall glanced back down at his work, then back up to her.
"A hobby," he replied, gathering the tools back up, suddenly a bit unhappy about her intrusion into his room. Few people had bothered to come into his rooms before, and in those cases, Squall had never felt very comfortable. He liked his private space to be private, after all.
"Looks interesting," she replied as Squall replaced the scattered equipment in the case.
"What do you want?" he asked, rather bluntly as he closed the case. Squall wasn't in much of a mood to chat at the moment.
"Well," Rinoa replied, "I was wondering if you could give me a tour of the Garden."
"I'm not a tour guide," Squall replied with a slowly rising sense of annoyance. "Is this another order?"
"No," Rinoa replied, seeming to sense Squall's discomfort. "Just a request. I'd rather someone I know show me around so I don't get lost in here. Please?"
"All right," Squall muttered, unhappy but seeing no other way to get Rinoa out of his room. He rose from his chair and, belting his gunblade to his hip, walked outside with her.
With the "modifications" to the Garden, the hallway between the dorms and the main building was drastically shortened. in fact, the Garden itself was a lot more compact and claustrophobic now, which wasn't truely a problem, as a portion of the student body and the majority of the SeeDs were no longer around.
They quickly passed the dorms hall and were soon out into the main Garden structure. Squall stopped at the central ring around the elevators, and glanced back and forth, trying to decide which way he should go first, and which route would be quickest to show Rinoa around and get her off his back. However, this was not to be the case.
"So, what's that way?" Rinoa asked as Squall was considering, looking to the left.
"The parking garage," he replied curtly.
"And that way?" she continued, nodding to the right.
"Cafeteria," Squall stated. She glanced back to him, an annoyed look on her face that matched the way he felt.
"Look, Squall," she said, "I really appreciate you taking me on a tour, but could you . . . I dunno, try to make it a bit more fun? Like a normal tour?"
The expression on Squall's face told her that asking him to do something like that would be like asking Selphie to not drive quickly. It just didn't happen, not with Squall Leonhart. She read the look on his face, and put her hands on her hips, pouting slightly. Squall's expression didn't change, and finally she sighed explosively and walked away, toward the cafeteria, shaking her head. Squall watched her leave, somewhat confused by her reaction, but shrugging it off. If Rinoa had a problem with how he showed her around, that was her problem, not his.
"Squall Leonhart?" a voice demanded, and Squall looked back over his shoulder, to see one of the recently-missing Faculty approaching. The man looked to Squall, who nodded.
"Yes?"
"The Garden Master wishes to speak with you," he stated. "Follow me."
"Now?" Squall asked, uncertain. He wasn't exactly prepared for a meeting with the mysterious Garden Master at the moment.
"Yes, now!" the Faculty replied, ire creeping into his voice. "Garden Master NORG has no time to waste! Follow me to the elevator."
Squall shrugged once more as the Faculty spun on his heels and strode along the circular walkway. The SeeD followed the robed figure along his route, circling the elevators and entering the lift. The Faculty waved one of his sleeved hands along the floor selection panel, and Squall once again caught a faint flash of fingers that seemed strangely elongated.
Immediately, the elevator dropped. For several long seconds, it descended, until it gradually slid to a halt at a level Squall knew nothing about. The doors opened silently, exposing a darkened room made of some type of dark-blue metal Squall could not immediately identify.
Squall stepped off the elevator, which immediately whooshed back up to the upper levels, the Faculty taking it back up. Squall glanced back up at it, and then back down into the room around him. It was rather cavernous. The floor was a dark blue that glowed eerily, and the walls of the massive chamber were high and made of some type of concrete that featured etched designs across it. To the south of the elevator shaft a massive dome was constructed, partially built into the elevator shaft itself.
"Let go of me!" came a man's shout from around the dome. It took Squall a moment to recognize the voice because he had never heard him sound so furious.
It was Cid.
"I'm not finished!" shouted Cid as he was shoved around the south side of the dome. A Faculty member followed him more slowly and Cid recovered his balance.
"You fat, greedy son of a bitch!" Cid fumed, his face red with anger. "Why did I ever bother talking with you? Don't you understand the importance of SeeD? They were brought up for the future, and that future is now, no matter how hard you try to deny it!"
The Faculty stalked toward Cid, and one arm shot forward, grabbing Cid by the front of his vest and lifting him up with surprising strength, before shoving him back hard toward the elevator. Cid fell back on his rear, and the Faculty, his job done, stalked away.
"Hyne-dammit!" Cid shouted, livid. "You don't understand, you money-grubbing pig! I wish I could go back ten or so years so I could tell myself you're nothing but a backstabbing greedy bastard! Then I wouldn't have built this place!" Cid trembled in fury as the Faculty disappeared around the dome, ignoring him.
"Sir?" Squall asked, and Cid turned toward him, surprised.
"Squall!" he exclaimed, then scratched the back of his head in embarassment. "I . . I suppose you heard all of that?"
"Yes, sir," Squall answered, and Cid managed a slight laugh.
"I guess even old men like myself can lose our tempers from time to time," the Headmaster replied.
"Are you all right, sir?" Squall asked, but the Headmaster waved his hands quickly.
"I'm fine," he replied. "Just need to cool off. I'll be in my office. But, I need you to do me a favor."
"Yes sir," Squall replied, listening intently.
"Xu is down here too," Cid stated, nodding toward the dome. "Probably finishing a short meeting with NORG herself now. I want you to keep an eye out for her. Its not the safest place in the presence of snakes and sharks like NORG and his . . . people."
"I understand, sir," Squall replied. "I'll be ready for anything." Cid nodded and slowly stepped around Squall. The SeeD turned and his eyes followed him as he left, the Headmaster's shoulders starting to slump in exhaustion.
As Cid rose up on the elevator, another one of the Faculty approached Squall from behind. Squall turned to face him, and the robed figure gave him a once-over, before nodding.
"Leonhart," he stated. "You were the leader of the squad that carried out the assassination operation against Edea?"
"Yes," Squall replied with a nod.
"Good," the Faculty replied. "Come with me. NORG awaits your report."
The Faculty spun away and strode around the dome, and Squall followed reluctantly. The Headmaster's warning sounded once again in his mind, and Squall found his hand dropping to the handle of his sheathed gunblade. He took some reassurance at the solid weight of the weapon as he rounded the corner, senses primed.
Xu was standing to the south of the dome, and scattered around the area were a number of Faculty, clad in the same red robes as their brethren. Except, there was a startling difference between these Faculty and the others: they wore no hats, revealing their faces.
Those faces were not those of humans. They were pale-skinned, a creamy-beige color, with thick, fatty jowls and cheeks, and hairless scalps. Their mouths were lipless, instead seeming to be slits cut into their faces, and their eyes were solid black orbs.
The Faculty were all Shumi.
Squall knew about the Shumi, to a degree. He had rarely encountered their species before, and that was only while he had been in Balamb, and one of their merchant ships was in port. The species was not particularly reclusive or distant, except that their lands, located in the frigid wastelands and mountains of Trabia, were difficult to access. They were excellent miners and craftsmen, and some of them acted as merchants, selling beautiful works of art and advanced technology to the humans in the warmer, southern climes. However, the normal Shumi race was much smaller, half a human's height, at least during the significant portion of their lives. After they passed a certain age, Shumi "evolved" into other creatures, many of them into the fiery Moombas, but others into an "elder" race, taller than humans but otherwise the same as smaller Shumis.
"Garden's true owners?" Squall muttered as he saw them, shocked. Xu gave him a slight nod, before looking past him, up at the dome. Squall turned toward the dome, and as he wheeled, he heard a thunderous whisper of breath coming from within.
On the south side, the dome was cut away, to reveal a massive Shumi, nearly four times the size of Squall, Xu, or the Faculty. It was clad in massive, thick blue and black robes as it rested back within the dome, which seemed to exist as a combination of a habitat shelter and a nerve center. The Shumi's face was lit by dozens of screens and monitors, displaying video feeds from around Garden, and other data as well.
"Squall," Xu stated, nodding toward the massive Shumi, who seemed to regard him with lethargic attention, its head moving slowly down toward the SeeD. "This is NORG, Garden's owner and proprietor."
"Fushurururu," NORG mumbled in what was likely its language. A split second later, a powerful, artificial tone from within the dome translated, speaking loudly and quickly.
"GIVE-YOUR-REPORT-ON-THE-SORCERESS," the voice demanded.
"Respond quickly," stated the Faculty who had led Squall there. "Be concise, but omit nothing."
"Right," Squall replied. He sighed, and composed himself. This was going to be a sad report. "My squad confirmed the order to assassinate the Sorceress Edea at Galbadia Garden. After Galbadia Garden Master Martine attached Galbadia Garden SeeD Irvine Kinneas to our unit, we proceeded to Deling City to carry out the assassination order from both Balamb and Galbadia Gardens-"
"Bujurururu!" NORG grumbled, slamming one of its massive, meaty hands on something inside the dome. "BALAMB-AND-GALBADIA-GARDEN'S-ORDERS? Bujurara! YOU-WERE-TRICKED!"
"What?" Squall asked, confused.
"Fushurura," NORG rumbled. "EXPLAIN."
"Master NORG was well aware of the alliance between Galbadian President Vinzer Deling and the Sorceress Edea," one of the Faculty behind Squall and Xu explained. "Garden Master Martine was keeping a close eye on the situation, and reporting back to NORG, being NORG's subordinate."
"The extent of the alliance was not confirmed until one of Headmaster Kramer's associates arrived a short while ago with information directly linking the two to a plot to dominate the world," another Faculty added.
"Trent," Squall answered, and the Faculty nodded.
"Yes," the first one said with a nod, disgust creeping into its tone. "One of her SeeDs."
"In any case," the second one continued. "The Sorceress and Garden are in fact very closely connected, which is why we believed that we would be a target if, or rather when, she moved. This has been proven both during the missile strike and the capture of Galbadia Garden by Galbadian troops." "How bad was the invasion?" Squall asked, and the first Faculty shrugged.
"We believe they merely forced the students and faculty out of the complex and took control," it said. "Strangely enough, all of the SeeDs at that Garden were missing when the attack occurred, and Martine could not account for their absence."
"With this threat against Garden looming above us," the second stated, bringing the conversation back on topic, "NORG had sent an order to Galbadia Garden telling Martine to initiate an assassination operation against Edea. A Galbadia Garden team was prepared for the operation."
"Fushurarari!" NORG thundered. "BUT-THAT-WEASEL-MARTINE-USED-YOU-INSTEAD-TO-SHIFT-THE-BLAME-ON-TO-ME-INSTEAD-OF-HIM! HE-BETRAYED-ME! THAT-THAT-BASTARD!"
"Then Cid didn't give the order to assassinate Edea?" Squall asked. NORG thundered once more, this time a chuckle.
"Bajira," it stated. "NO. HE-WOULD-NEVER."
"Martine used you and your squad because you were convenient and would redistribute blame elsewhere," the first Faculty explained. "But, that would only matter if the operation failed."
"And it did," the second stated. "And now she has retaliated and begun to eliminate Gardens, one after the other."
"Something had to be done to calm her," the first said. "And to that end, we had to hand over those directly responsible for the assassination attempt in an effort to show our sincerety."
"But, the ones who carried out the assassination attempt were . . . ." Xu said.
"SeeDs," Squall finished grimly. His hand dropped onto his gunblade once more, but he took a threatening step forward, scowling viciously as fury worked its way into his thoughts and voice. "You . . . you were going to betray us . . . ."
"Fushuraruri," NORG replied. "BUSINESS-IS-BUSINESS."
"Hynedammit!" Squall shouted suddenly, surprising everybody. "Coward! SeeD has the ability to fight the Sorceress, and you know it! What about everything we go through, day after day, training constantly? You just suddenly decide to hand us all over and hide in your hole?"
"Bajara!" NORG thundered, smashing a fist onto something else inside his dome. "YOU-LOST-TO-HER! Bushsusususu! CID-DEPLOYED-THE-SeeDS-TO-STOP-EDEA! AWAY-FROM-GARDEN! AND-IF-THEY-FAIL,-GARDEN-IS-FINISHED! MY-GARDEN!" I-INTENDED-TO-HAND-CID-OVER-AS-WELL-BUT-MY-STUDENTS-SIDED-WITH-HIM! THEY-CAN'T-DO-THAT! THIS-IS-MY-GARDEN, AND-NO-ONE-DEFIES-NORG!"
"No!" Xu responded, shaking her head. "This isn't just your Garden!"
"Bajurarari!" NORG replied angrily. "THEN-WHOSE? CID-AND-EDEA'S? THAT-PATHETIC-MARRIED-COUPLE'S?"
"Married?" Squall echoed, the words jolting him. Headmaster Cid and the Sorceress Edea were . . . married?
"Fishurura," NORG stated, his tone, while still angry, was thoughtful as well. "WAIT! I-UNDERSTAND-NOW-WHY-WE-SURVIVED! BALAMB-ONLY-SURVIVED-THE-MISSILE-STRIKE-BECAUSE-CID-WAS-HERE! THEY'RE-WORKING-TOGETHER-TO-TAKE-MY-GARDEN-FROM-ME! ITS-ALL-BEEN-A-PLOT! THAT'S-WHY-CID-WAS-ABLE-TO-STOP-THE-TAKEOVER! THEY-PLOTTED-THIS-IN-ADVANCE! I-WON'T-LET-THEM! AND-YOU! CID'S-PAWNS!"
NORG's dome suddenly hissed, and it settled back into it. The top of the dome slid shut over the Garden Master, and sealed it away safely.
"YOU-DIE-FIRST."
-----------------
Ah! Such an abrupt ending, no? Heh.
I apologize for the relative shortness of this chapter. The idea I had for it originally just kept dragging on and on, and actually, if I had written the entire thing as one chapter, it probably would have been the largest yet! Thus, I split it into two.
However, never fear, for in addition to this latest chapter of Gunblade, I upload the next chapter of Synthesis as well! Thus giving you plenty of reading. Go review the funky crossover/AU/question-answering fic too! No, seriously, please. I'm getting only one review per chapter now, and while they're good, I wish more people would review it. I'm kind of disappointed....
