May God have mercy on my soul for the battle sequence… I'm so ashamed.

Chapter 7, MY EYES!!

It took Squall a while to recover from that horrible experience, and that while involved seven cups of coffee, maniacly reading reports and using some of the seagulls as target practice for the more explosive part of his weapon.

As he was starting to calm down enough to start thinking about how to best get the bloodied feathers and glass splitter off the carpet, Xu suddenly entered.

The newly arrived looked from the dead birds on the floor to the scowling commander, and back again a couple of times. Finally she clasped her hands and let them hang before her casually.

"What, are you trying to get away from the traditional killing-some-random-monster, commander?" she asked.

"No," Squall scowled, "just trying to relieve tension."

"That's what I said, Sir..." Xu nodded with a confused look, "why don't you go to the training center?"

Squall shook his head.

"I don't have time to kill a T-Rexaur in a blind fit of rage, all these idiotic clichés are already getting in the way of the reports as it is," he scowled.

Xu nodded in understanding.

"And what do you have to report and analyse in this story, then?" Squall scowled.

"Ah yes."

Xu straightened up and saluted.

"Commander, we have recieved a troubling message from Timber. The resitance forces have reported an increased influx of conspiracies seen over all of Galbadia, the sky is practically reddish with them."

Squall sighed and scowled, realizing that he would be the one that had to say the most apparent thing.

"Not another bloody conspiracy!" he growled, sheathing his gunblade by his waist, where it faithfully disappeared.

"In other news," Xu flatly continued, "Selphie has gone to Trabia Garden to fix it up and arrived safely five minutes ago, and the White SeeDs are nowhere to be seen. Here is Nida with the weather report!"

And she stepped aside to let her collegue up in the command bridge past.

Or rather, the guy wearing a paperbag without even cuts for the eyes over his head past.

Squall finally managed to drop the scowl as he raised his eyebrows.

"Nida, that is not correct SeeD uniform..." he said, somewhat uncertain.

The paper bag sighed.

"I know bu-"

He fell silent and a hand rose up, pushing the bag upwards to reveal an astonished, plain face.

"You remembered my name?!" Nida gasped.

But his surprise ebbed to another sigh as he stared at Squall's suddenly completely blank look. Glancing at Xu he just saw the same. And with a cry of hopeless frustration, the forgotten SeeD resolutely pulled the bag back over his head before they could ask the eternal question about who he was. His fellow mercenaries sobered immediately.

"Fine, I understand then," Squall nodded with a hint of tiredness in his voice, "what do you have to report?"

"Well, Sir," Nida said under the paper, "it seems to be raining Sues and Stuarts. I took the liberty to move off Balamb Island and into the ocean to get rid of some of them."

"Nida?" the commander said.

"Yes, Sir?"

"Go back to the command bridge and hit the gas until it breaks the floor."

"Yessir."

Nida spun around and quickly marched out.

"And as for you," Squall added, turning to Xu, who saluted again.

"Yes, Sir?"

"How did you get in here despite the fact that I had barricaded the door?"

Xu looked around at the furniture neatly arranged around the room just as it had been at the start of the story.

"Well Sir, about that..."

But she never got to explain herself as a soft ring tone beeped out over the entire Garden.

"Attention, everyone," Nida's voice casually called out over the speaker system, even if he by laws of physics really shouldn't have made it up through the rebuilt elevator to the command bridge, but there went slight time kompression again.

Squall and Xu turned their eyes towards the ceiling as if that would help any.

"It seems like we're being invaded by Galbadia again," Nida continued just as calmly, "they're coming at us from the west on high-speed motor boats. Everybody..."

He paused and a loud yawn shivered through the Garden.

"... Sorry about that," Nida added and cleared his throat, "everybody get into your positions, please. 'Other Character''s are kindly asked to the front lines where you will be killed in a teary scene. The Commander will get to you during your last minute of life to mourn the loss, guaranteed."

The speakers went off with another soft beeping, but not quick enough to kill Nida's hardly supressed snicker. He was getting good at telling that lie without starting to laugh in mid-sentence, at least.

Even the SeeDs and older cadets that were sluggishly dragging themselves towards their battle stations smirked a little at the last sentance before going back to the bored and irritated faces.

Xu sighed.

"Should I go too, Sir?" she asked.

"Yes, yes..." Squall said while re-unsheathing his Gunblade from thin air and placing it straight downwards before him, with the tip touching the carpet, "now leave me alone, I'll get down to the battle as soon as I've finished the scene where I realize how much I really love Rinoa now that she's gone and I'm going to fight for my life and Garden's safety."

Xu fled.

They would fight Galbadia on the roofs, they would fight Galbadians in the Quad, they would fight the enemy in the Training Center and feed the remains to the monsters there if they had to. And everybody joined in, with hearthwarming, border-crossing enthusiasm, in the desperate escape from the suddenly reappearing Selphie who wasn't pleased with the sight of the ruined Garden Festival stage. Sugar-rushed dismay was naaasty business.

That Selphie had gone to Trabia and then suddenly returned, nobody cared about. It was common knowledge that no matter how many times she went to her old Garden to help out, it would probably not be mentioned in the story again and the reconstruction would definitely never be finished. If work wasn't disrupted by an accident involving falling stuff or rabid monsters looking for a meal, then the author simply would forget about it after s/he had used the ruined Garden as a plot device to just whisk a character away that s/he just didn't like.

Isn't that so? Hmmm? But I don't like Selphie either, so I don't blame you.

And there's a bit of random author's note in the middle of the story. Aren't they irritating? Hey, we're having a decisive Garden vs. Galbadia battle here, who cares about what the writer thinks about a particular character? Bah. Insensitive, that's what those authors are, will keep the readers on their toes with stupid interruptions in the text or hanging for weeks from those bleedin' cliffhangers. It's not fair I tell you. Why in my day they would have been hanged in their toes from the wall for that kind of thing and...

Uh... what was I telling you about again? Oh right, right, bloodshed and Selphie outscreaming Sacred while he's on his way into orbit. Or is that Minotaur? Hah! I just out-clichéd the cliché of "Not having a bloody idea what yer writing about but trying anyway"!

Anyway... back to the story, without further ado.

Squall rushed into the elevator and took it down to the ground floor and then he whipped out his gunbalde and then he started killing teh Galbadian soilers that where attacking the garden and then all the other seeds cmae runing and then they all fighted and bet all the evil soulders and then they all shouted "Victory" and all the not dead soilders ran away from garden and then the author broke down crying because she had written such a horrible paragraph.

And with common badfic logic, nobody wondered how "all the not dead soilders" managed to run "away from garden" considering that they were in the middle of the ocean between Balamb Island and the bridge connecting Esthar with FH and the rest of the world.

But the day was saved, everyone had hotdogs to celebrate, the bodies of the slain author created characters were taken cared of (tributes would be paid to the Galbadia army for the help as soon as possible), Squall went back to reading reports and everything was peaceful until this paragraph ended. And it's over now. So the trouble started pouring in again.

For the second time of the story and in a very short time, Xu entered Squall's office and saluted.

"What is it now?" the commander asked, rising from his seat and once again dropping the report.

He had lost count on how many times he had been interrupted as he had tried to get through today's workload, and was considering giving up. But there was no telling when this madness would stop - if it ever would. So it probably didn't matter what he did either way.

Xu saluted - again.

"Irvine, Zell and Quistis are back from their mission, commander," she briskly announced, "they've got Rinoa and three suspected traitors which should be thrown in jail or shot at first sight."

Squall smiled. That wasn't too much a rape of canon by now, considering all. With his heart dancing with joy he hurried out of his office and back into the elevator, slamming his hand into the button that would take him to the ground floor, giddy to see his love again forgetting about Xu and thereby leaving her behind.

Which was lucky, since that made the work easier for the exorcists sent from the Protectors of the Plot Continuum to knock Squall out and smash the official strategy guide of FFVIII into his chest while shouting:

"Begone, foul author, the power of Square compels you!"

They finished their mission and escaped before the elevator reached its destination. Squall woke up as the doors slid open, stood up and stumbled down the stair, nearly falling and breaking his arm. But since Irvine already had done that in the beginning of this story, the commander was spared from that trouble.

Below the stairs, he found his group of friends, and former enemies. The SeeDs, once SeeD cadets and the Sorceress all looked tired - Rinoa was even hanging, slung over Seifer's left shoulder. He held her securely with his arm, while the right arm was affectionately snaked around Quistis' waist.

Their demeanor, however, was less affectionate but sweetly agreed upon by all seven.

They looked rather disgruntled. And dripping wet from head to toe.

"KILLER," Fujin sourly said, reaching down her own collar and withdrawing a thin, squirming fish.

Disdainfully she sent it flying into the pool surrounding the Garden's heart.

"Yeah!" Zell agreed, while desperately working on keeping his melting cement-mousse from running into his eyes, "what's the big idea with suddenly bringing the Garden into the sea? We had to swim here, man!"

"We had to do something about the recent influx of Mary Sues and Stuarts," Squall scowled.

He turned to Seifer.

"How is Rinoa?" the commander demanded.

"Oh, she's fine," Seifer smirked and let the raven-haired sorceress slid off his shoulder, whereupon she sprawled on the ground coughing up salt-water, "just soaked like a rat, like the rest of us."

Squall immediatedly dived to his love's side and helped her get up on shaking legs. She stared up at him, bit her lower lip and then pushed him away.

Everybody gasped. Even Rinoa, for some reason. Like this:

"GASP!"

"Wha-what is it, Rinoa?" Squall finally managed to ask after having choked on the sharp intake of breath that nearly had made his lungs explode.

"I... I..."

Rinoa gulped, wringing the salt water out of her hair.

"Come on baby, you know I'll forgive whatever it is that is wrong," Squall promised, nearly gagging himself due to the out of character, horrid "fluff".

Irvine was on the floor, curled up in a fetal position due to hysterical laughter, Seifer leant against the nearest wall with Quistis patting his back while Fujin hugged the shaking Raijin and Zell still fought against his own styling cream that probably would fry his eyes upon contact. He was lucky not to have heard what his friend was forced to say, and he'd never know it. That just blows, doesn't it?

Rinoa was unfazed, however.

"I... um.... I........" she still stammered, "it's.........well........um......"

The amount of periods gave the people time to get themselves together, so when Rinoa finally managed to speak out what she wanted to say, everyone was just peachy again. And their clothes had dried, too!

"I...... Squall.... I'm... I'm pregnant."

And everybody GASPed, again.

What an exciting turn of events, isn't it?!!