Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy 8 or any characters in it, blah blah blah.
"If you don't join imagine the pain you'll suffer. What they'll suffer. You must."
Chapter 2
Clouds whirred past the dome window as Quistis stared up at the sky in the Ragnarok. Squall drove. That was fine. She had powered the Ragnarok once or twice. She handled it well, but it was a frightening experience, and she decided Squall was the best man for the job. They descended close to the city of Timber, in the grass of the wild plains about it. She liked Timber. It had a calm relaxing feel about it, laid-back, easy. She tried to be laid-back at times, but frustration and her emotions could get the best of her at times. She walked down the Ragnarok platform with the others in silence. They got to the entrance of the city, and Squall turned to face the others. "There could be danger about the city." He said calmly. "Galbadians, for example. We'll split. I'll take two to check out Elise, the other three patrol Timber. Rinoa, you know your way around, so you'll lead the team patrolling Timber. Any volunteers?" He asked.
Quistis stepped forward. "I'll go to Elise. I'm curious." She said. More like anxious. She needed to see if Elise had things in common with the differences in Quistis lately.
Squall nodded. "Okay, Irvine, you come with us, Zell and Selphie, go with Rinoa." He said.
The others nodded and spread to their teams. Rinoa and her team went into the city to explore and patrol about, and Quistis and Irvine followed Squall to a small house in the downtown part of the city. Squall rapped his knuckles on the door and was soon greeted by a small old balding man. He shook Squall's hand. "Hello SeeD. Thank you for coming. My daughter is right inside, here." Her father said. He led them to a tiny room in the back of their house with just a desk and a bed. A young girl slept on the bed with short brown hair. She woke up once they walked in and sat up erect. She watched them with her brown eyes as they filed in and stood next to her bed. Squall kneeled down next to her, speaking gently. "Hi Elise. I'm Squall; these are my friends, Quistis and Irvine. We're here to help. How old are you?" He asked.
She trembled a bit. "Twelve." She said.
Squall nodded. "What did it feel like when your body was taken over?" He asked.
"Bad. I didn't know what was happening. I just kept using bad magic, and I don't even know how. It just feels like somebody's controlling me." She said.
Squall nodded. "When did this start?" He asked her.
"About two weeks ago." She replied, feeling more confident now that she knew Squall was trying to help.
Squall went on asking more basic questions, which she usually had a ready answer for. Nearly an hour later, Squall stood and thanked Elise and her father, and they walked out the door to find Zell in a fist fight with a Galbadian soldier, with many others swarming towards him. "Zell, what the hell is going on?" Squall yelled to him.
Zell finished off the soldier with a kick to the chest and turned to face Squall.
"Another invasion! Rinoa and Selphie are at the entrance, trying to hold them off from coming in, I came to get you!" He said, turning to fight another soldier.
"Squall, what do we do?" Irvine asked.
"We need to make our way through to the entrance to get reinforcements!" He shouted as he ran to the fray with his gunblade drawn. Irvine followed, shooting off rounds of ammo into the attacking troops. Quistis followed, whip cracking into soldiers, knocking them down left and right. The four of them continued the fighting up until the entrance, where they found Selphie and Rinoa having a rough time holding off the masses of soldiers. They were being outnumbered, and sorely losing. Quistis felt another of the spells brooding within her, one she knew, but not as powerful as this presence was. She decided she would have to give in. She crossed her arms against her, concentrating and bringing the spell forth. She cast out her hands to the soldiers, and glaring red light formed against them, and for a split second they paused to look around, but it was too late. Angry red light slammed into them repeatedly into the soldiers, like lava spewing from invisible volcanoes into the, pounding them to the ground, finishing them off. And as soon as it began, it was over. She collapsed to her knees in shock. She had finished them all off with one Flare spell. She looked up to the others, who simply stared in shock. She had finished off hundreds of soldiers with one spell. She looked at her shaking hands. 'What is wrong with me?'
"Well, this is truly astonishing. Excellent work, I've never heard of such as successful Flare casting!" Headmaster Cid explained as they sat back in his office that day.
Quistis gave a weak nod. Astonishing indeed. It was more powerful even than the Ultima she had casted that same morning, and Ultima was known to be more powerful than Flare, but it had still hardly worn her down! She really didn't feel like being interrogated by the Headmaster, so she left Squall to explain the situation with Elise.
After they had been excused, she stayed back to talk with Cid and Edea. "I've never done something so powerful before. Even when I was an instructor, and I taught that magic, I couldn't even do that much. I don't know what's wrong with me." She confessed.
Cid gave a sympathetic nod. "That's alright. You may be just going through a change in your magic skill. It's happened before with many students, your body's magic skill just randomly increases to a new power. It isn't uncommon, no need to worry." He said comfortingly.
She nodded. "Thank you. I wasn't aware that could happen. Thanks again, see you later." She said as she left. But she didn't think he was right. She too, had witnessed that change in many of her students, and she knew that wasn't happening to her. It was something more than that, but what?
She collapsed on her bed the second she entered her room and fell asleep in seconds. But it wasn't a good sleep; she had that same dream again. She had lost track of how many times she had this dream. She woke up at 6:00, still restless. Her whole body felt sore. It was no wonder, either; she had fallen asleep in her clothes, whip and all. She downed her usual morning coffee and stepped into the hall, reasonably grumpier than she had been the morning before. She found Zell sitting against the wall across from her dorm, dozing off. She gave him a light nudge with her foot, startling him. He jumped up with a silly grin on his face. "Good Morning, Quissy!" He said brightly.
"Why are you up so early, and outside my room?" She demanded.
He frowned. "I was waiting for you. Wanna go get some breakfast in Balamb?" He asked. She had forgotten they had flown the Garden back to its old original spot for the time being, so they once again had access to the neighboring city of Balamb. She had no clue why he wanted to tale her to breakfast, but she didn't feel like asking.
"Okay…let's go."
It was a nice day out as they walked down the long winding road to Balamb. The sun was rising out of the ocean, casting dappled pink and purple clouds out across the sky. They headed to a small café in the corner of the city, at a nice table outside where they could smell the sea breeze and watch the waves dance through the water.
"I love it here. When I was adopted here and we were little, we would run and jump off every cliff we could find into the ocean and swim there all day long." Zell said, with a nostalgic look on his face.
She tried to imagine a miniature Zell throwing himself off a cliff into the ocean. It wasn't hard. "Isn't that a bit dangerous?" She asked.
He smirked. "Damn, Quissy, I wouldn't be talking. I remember a day at the old orphanage, we jumped off a big cliff into the ocean near the house, didn't we?" He asked.
"I don't have any recollection of that." She said with a smile.
They laughed, both of them remembering perfectly well.
After they had eaten, they walked down to his adoptive mother's house to say hello, and then to the beach. He picked up sand and let it run through his fingers while they sat together on a large rock, watching the waves roll and crash into the sand below.
"You know, Quistis, you really scared us all yesterday." He said carefully.
She sighed. The last thing she felt like talking about on such a pleasant day. "I'm sorry. I don't know what's came over me lately. I try to control it, honestly, but at times I just have to let it go, especially if it's to save you guys. You guys are my only family. I couldn't run the risk of not stopping those soldiers, no matter what the risks are." She said.
He nodded. "I understand. I won't bring it up again, I just needed to know."
"Thank you." She said.
They relaxed and talked in Balamb for the rest of the day, enjoying their rare day off. That night, she had the dream, but slept on peacefully.