Chapter 8, Grand battle royal… not

"Pr... pregnant?!" Squall stuttered, "again?"

Rinoa nervously nodded.

"Yes... I'm sure, I... I'm sorry to shock you like this, Squall... but I'm sure..." she mumbled, "it's the ten-thousand or so time I've felt this; I know..."

"Bu... buh..."

Squall caught himself falling too far out of character again and forced himself back into at least vague control with all his power of will (and having junctioned 100 Ultimas on that stat finally seemed to help!).

"Who's the father this time?" he asked, carefully placing his hands on Rinoa's shoulders as if he was afraid she'd shatter, "is it me?"

Rinoa started spluttering again for no apparent reason, which of course meant that Squall needed to elaborate further.

"Did somebody hurt you while you were imprisoned?" he asked, all ignoring the fact that she'd only been kidnapped for... for... eh... good question... a few hours and it was anatomically impossible to just KNOW that she was pregnant that fast.

Rinoa kept spluttering.

"Well, was it the sorcerer, Susan?" Squall tried and glanced over his shoulder to glare, "or do I have to kill Seifer?"

At this, everyone else of course had to *gasp!* again and stare at Seifer who did an literally incorrect *sweatdrop* and wildly shook his head, sending the imaginary water drop splashing all over the warriors standing too close. But since it was just a figment of their collective imagination, nobody got really wet.

"It's... it's..."

Rinoa took in a deep breath, looked Squall square in the eye (trying to avoid drowning in his eyes, not only to save time but also because that was, in all honesty, a really gory thing to do and a pain to clean up), opened her mouth with determination this time and got tackled to the ground by a young woman in a SeeD uniform.

Sparkles flashed from the grayish eyes of the woman as she gracefully somersaulted back to end up face to face with the blinking Squall. With a sweep from a strong yet elegant hand she swept her shoulderlength of brown hair from her face and smiled a stunning smile at the commander.

"Excuse the intrusion, brother," she said in a singing voice with an accent fit from the exotic land where she had grown up - that explained the healthy tan - to become a legend before she came to graduate in Balamb, "I hope you don't mind me cleaning up that trash. Now, do you finally see that it's time that you realize your true feelings and admit your feelings for Zell like you're supposed to?"

Over by the larger group of cast, a fist fighter made a funny sound and hid behind Raijin in pure panic.
Squall smiled.

"Good afternoon, Stormlily," he said, "so happy to see you again after all these years apart."

And with that he grabbed her hair, drew his gunblade and sliced the new Sue's head clean off before she had time to react. Without even looking he swung his arm backwards and slammed the head into the chest of the strangely generic SeeD cadet that had been dashing towards the siblings.

"Here!" the commander snarled, still not looking while the headless body crumbled to the floor.

"Oh, thanks!" Tyler happily grinned and grabbed the head without flinching, "about time we got some help. Kirsten, take the body!"

"We're not supposed to be seen by canon!" the lady of the PPC couple scowled as she stepped out of hiding and slung the cooling body over her shoulder.

"With all the stuff going on, what's the point of not seeing you, anyway?" Squall muttered while he helped Rinoa get back on shaking feet.

She kept mumbling "She touched me... oh Hyne, Sue germs... she touched me... germs... germs..." while her eyes manically rolled.

Tyler shrugged with a grimace.

"Good point there, man. I wonder what the hell is going on, this Sueflux can't be natural even for this place..."

He looked down at the head that still slouched blood all over his uniform, and the smile returned.

"Ah well, we got another one down. And this will make a good birthday present, too. It's Pierson's eighteenth birthday as this is written."

A second of paralyzation ensued. Then all the canon characters started checking themselves for changed clothing, bibles, note blocks, dreadlocks and psychotic librarians.

Until they realized that the last birthday present hadn't had anything to do with the new one. But by the time they reach that conclusion, the PPCers had already left, taking the body of Stormlily with them.

Squall pulled Rinoa close to him and gently stroke her hair for a while until she calmed down; that was understandable enough to be accepted even by canon considering the circumstances. Rinoa was quite used to be touched by Stuarts and knew how to... kinda take that, but Sues were still sending heavier shocks through her. It was the same for everyone and author avatars of the same sex.

Mostly. In the long run it was the same horror in either case, but each shock was as nasty as the last before it got under control.

"So. Can we get this sorted out already?" Irvine eventually asked, by now casually seated on one of the lower steps of the stair together with everyone else apart from the main couple.

Squall immediately - fairly carefully though - pushed away slightly as he realized that he and Rinoa were in everyone's undiverted focus.

"Yes, who is the father?" he asked, looking her straight in the eyes.

Rinoa looked back for a moment, then took in a deep breath, threw a suspicious glance around for any sign of newly created characters, and then spoke quickly before anything else managed to get in between:

"I don't know, but it should be you, Squall."

She frowned.

"Though in this story I haven't really %¤#£...! AUGH!"

Rinoa stumbled backwards out of Squall's gentle grip, clutching her throat and wildly coughing as her speaking chords tried to rip themselves out in agony after having been forced through another stupidly censored bad word.

When she managed to get herself under control after a handy-dandy Curaga spell, she straightened up to see Squall standing where she had left him, right hand stretched out hesitantly and left foot before the other in half a step. But he stood like a statue, gaze locked on nothing.

The people of the stair regarded him with wary interest, waiting for whatever would happen next while silently reaching for their weapons just to make sure.

"Squall?" Rinoa worriedly said.

No reaction.

She stepped closer and waved her hand before his eyes.

His lips moved a little, but that was all.

"What is it? Are you alright?" the young sorceress wondered.

The lips moved again.

"Come on Squall, wake up!" Rinoa called, reaching her mind into his, thinking that perhaps Susan had trapped him in some kind of nightmare.

The truth was even uglier and she stumbled backwards with a horried gasp, pulling out her mind in the last second.

"What is it now?" Quistis shouted, quickly getting to her feet together with the other spectators.

"Run!" Rinoa shrieked, stalking backwards away from Squall.

Sweat broke out on the commanders forehead as his arm fell and the stargazing look began to turn manical. Almost mechanically he turned towards the people by the stair. They suddenly found themselves frozen under the wild gaze of their leader/nemesis.

Squall's lips moved again, and this time the words were heard. He spoke almost sluggishly, but at the same time with a sharp edge of desperation.

"Must... not... suddenly... grab... Seifer... and... run... to... the... Training... Center... to... make... out..."

A cold chill ran through the Garden, its metaphorical swooshing sound the only noise for a couple of seconds.

Then people reacted accordingly.

"BAD SLASH!" Zell screamed in pure horror and instantly invented a new limit break that allowed him to leap in a wide arc all the way from the stair and into the right half of the Garden pool, fleeing the immediate area with powerful sweeps of his arms and legs that sent waves halfway up the elevator spire.

Irvine followed him, by within a second loading his rifle with a rope stuck to a fishing hook which he fired after Zell. The hook caught the fist-fighter's shirt and Irvine threw his weapon aside, too desperate to get away from any risks of finding himself godawfully incorrectly pregnant to care about his beloved Exeter. Instead he grabbed onto the rope and was ripped along in Zell's escape, water-skiing witout skis down the pool in the wake of the humanoid tsunami*.

Seifer staggered backwards and stumbled on the lowest step, falling back over the stair with a frightened yelp. He scrambled without managing to get up, suddenly rendered completely helpless by the fic's logic.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he considered the fact that it really should have been him scaring Squall by normal standards, but that thought kinda drowned in everything else.

Luckily for Seifer, Quistis and Fujin had enough courage left to protectively step up side by side before him, threateningly raising the whip and the pinwheel. Raijin had long since fled up the stair and huddled behind the railing surrounding the second floor of the elevator structure.

Rinoa also managed to swallow her fear and rushed up to the other two women, turning to the still immobile Squall with her palms turned at him in a halting pose.

And the commander hadn't moved an inch.

"Alright everyone," Quistis grimly said, hardly moving her lips and not taking her eyes off the frozen Squall for a single second, "we defend Seifer with our lives, but at any sign of tentacles we run screaming. But whatever you do, not like schoolgirls."

"I don't think even I am generally characterized as stupid enough to act like a schoolgirl in face of a tentacle monster," Rinoa shuddered, her hands glowing as she began to call on her sorceress powers.

Fujin stretched out her free hand horizontally and drew an imaginary line over her throat with it.

"PREFERABLE," she grunted with a grimace.

If they had discussed fleeing for any other cause, Seifer would have muttered something sarcastic. But as it was, he couldn't exactly blame him. And in either case he was far too occupied with being paralyzed in fear to bother.

And Squall finally moved, turning slightly without moving much apart from his feet.

Everyone froze, sending a silent prayer to Hyne to preserve them in the horrid fight that would certainly ensue.

Squall fell over. Without moving a muscle, rigid as a poker. He even made a clonking sound when hitting the floor.

Complete silence ruled for a few seconds.

"Did somebody cast Petrify?" Seifer eventually suggested, starting to get control enough to try standing.

Rinoa found herself being a main attraction yet again, immediately shaking her head.

"Nope, not me," she claimed.

"Well, somebody should have a look at him and see if the bad slash has passed," Quistis concluded.

Nobody moved.

"Really," the former instructor added, hesitantly, "I think he might have troubles breathing with his face smashed against the floor like that."

Still nobody moved.

"Rinoa, as the resident expert on sorceresses and knights," Seifer said with a brief flash of pride, "I suggest that you should take a look inside his mind and see what's wrong."

"I can't."

Rinoa sighed and let her arms fall.

"What, why not?" Seifer worriedly asked, frowning as he finally got to his feet properly.

Quistis and Fujin also watched the young sorceress in worried disbelief.

Rinoa shook her head.

"I already did that a couple of minutes ago," she said with a bitter little smile, "that was when I saw the bad slash. I can't do the same trick twice in the same story, or at least not so quickly in succession. The plot gets too repetive."

"Ooh," Quistis and Seifer sighed.

Meanwhile, Fujin sighed:

"OOH."

"Well," Rinoa said, scratching her head, "what do we do then?"

"Throw a shoe at him?" Seifer thoughtfully suggested.

"Too undignified for us," Quistis said with a dismissive wave of her hand, "we could always try to shock him back to life with a Thundaga though."

Rinoa suddenly blinked, staring at empty air.

"Oh, he can hear us at least," she said, a bright smile taking over her features, "that's a relief... oh, and he is cursing a lot at you two right now."

"Tell me something new, Rin," Seifer snorted.

"DOG."

"Who are you calling a dog!?" Quistis and Rinoa immediatedly bristled, spinning at Fujin who almost fell backwards.

The albino quickly shook her head defensively.

"ANGELO!" she rasped.

The two harpies turned back into levelheaded young adults at once.

"Oh right, she hasn't done anything in this story yet!" Rinoa nodded, "good thinking Fujin!"

With that, the sorceress put two fingers in her mouth and whistled.

Two seconds later Angelo skidded to a halt by her feet, apparently coming from out of nowhere.

Rinoa: *points* Go help Squall, girl!

Angelo: *barks and runs over to Squall, turns Squall over with her nose and starts licking Squall's face*

Fujin: GOD NO.

Seifer: What?

Fujin: SCRIPTFORMAT.

Rinoa: Period, period, period.

Quistis: Hyphen, underscore, hyphen, semi-colon, semi-colon.

Seifer: Capital O, underscore, small o.

Squall: *pushes Angelo away* OK, OK! I'm fine!

Angelo: *barks*

Everyone: Carat, underscore, carat.

And that, gentle readers, is how scriptformat with chat expressions would sound in practice.

 SQUALL GOT TO HIS FEET AND RINOA RAN OVER TO HUG HIM, AS HE SEEMED TO BE ALRIGHT AGAIN. bUT BEFORE SHE MADE IT TO HIM HE FELL OVER AGAIN, BUT THAT WAS OKAY BECAUSE RINOA DID TOO, AS WELL AS ANGELO, FUJIN, QUISTIS AND SEIFER. NOT TO MENTION EVERYONE ELSE WITHIN A FIVE MILE RADIUS OF THIS PARAGRAPH, SINCE IT WAS LOUD ENOUGH TO DEAFEN ANYBODY WHO WAS TOO CLOSE BY.

"My ears! Make it stop! Make it stop!" Seifer shouted, trying to be heard above the rumble in his own head after the screaming text.

Vaguely he could hear his allies cry similar things, but the words couldn't really make it through.

Afterwards he realized that he must have passed out for a while, but it couldn't have been long. Because when he awakened, the others were just trying to stagger to their feet.

Somehow he managed to crawl up into standing, swaying but managing to remain vertical by heavily leaning against Quistis, who leant onto him. Together they managed to keep balance.

Fujin seemed to do okay, but had given up the idea of staying erect. Instead she had plopped back down on the stair, holding her head in her hands.

Rinoa got up and fell back down a couple of times, finally giving up and instead crawling over to Squall who was sitting on his knees and furiously rubbing his temples with both hands. Angelo was still down, knocked out cold. Small whimpers and twitches of her paws showed that she was alive however.

"Squall?" Rinoa hoarsely whispered, reaching out to him.

He lowered his hands as she touched his arm and looked her in the eyes, sighing.

Then he spoke through his teeth.

"What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On. Here. Today?"

"You know," Rinoa slowly nodded, leaning her cheek in her hand, "I'm starting to wonder about that too."

And as if it had only waitied for those words, a voice rung out over the Garden. Thankfully, it was a lot more silent than the deafening paragraph.

"Allow me to enlighten you, my pretties! And your little dog, too!"

Sandra's grand entrance didn't go off until after the echo had died off, which was long enough for everyone to finish their groaning at the new horribly overused joke.

If I hadn't already made a scriptformat joke I could have copped out here and just written something like "Susan: *appears!*", but since I've done both script and copping out already, I'm not getting away this time. Heck, I already did these in-text author's notes too, so I should give it a rest now.

So, to the appearance of our bishie then!

A bright flash of light exploded in the air above the path leading towards the exit of Garden, and with a dramatical chord from an invisible piano the sorcerer Sandra appeared in all his horribly underdressed glo-

"Hold it!"

"Eh?"

Susan blinked, glaring at the somewhat distant Squall, whom got up on wobbly legs.

"Didn't you say your name was Susan?" the commander called, placing his hand on the inside path's railing to remain standing.

"Yeah, what about it?" Susan replied, gracefully landing with all his ribbons seductively swirling around him.

"Then why does the text call you 'Sandra' now and then?"

The sorcerer coughed, his eyes nervously starting to shift.

"Uh... the author doesn't have her facts straight!" he finally shouted in an irritated voice.

"I think he just doesn't have a real reason to be evil..." Seifer muttered to Quistis, who nodded with a grunt.

Susan/Sandra's ribbons flapped upwards to wave around his head like angry snakes as his pretty features constricted in annoyance.

"I heard that! You'll pay for your insolence!"

"Things like that are no threat to me anymore..." the knight muttered in a tired voice.

"OLD," Fujin agreed.

But they all did reach for their weapon as, by a wave of Susan's hand, the floor around the sorcerer's feet flared up for a second. As the light disappeared, the ground was covered by purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens from outter space in various unspeakable forms. It seemed like they came in all flavors.

Not that anyone with a remotely sane mind would wonder about how aliens taste. Ahem. Stop looking at me like that.

"You cannot hope to win," Susan smugly said while his ribbons settled again and he crossed his arms, "even if I just said one of the first things in the book of 'Things that Villains should not say', the story is not in your favor."

"Oh really?" Rinoa bravely called, "but we are the heroes, and we always win if the story is clichéd! You might as well give up at once!"

Susan laughed a very girly but still typically villainous laughter. He should have gotten a prize for managing to pull that one off.

"Tweheehaha! But no, you don't understand at all, my dear!"

"Oh, I hate it when they say things like that..." Quistis murmured.

"I have you all in my grip! These clichés have all but exhausted you, and you are now too weakened to fight my servants!"

Another rumbling girl laughter followed.

"Lo, all that has occurred in this story has been part of my plan!"

"You plan?" Squall rasped, feeling cold sweat break out of his forehead as his brain started to throb by the unbearable clichéness of the sorcerer's speeches.

"Yes!" Sandra smirked and raised his hands towards the roof, "I shall defeat you with a variation of the great Ultimecia's plan and be victorious where she will fail in the future!"

The questionable logic in the last statement was discarded in front of the tense air that filled the Garden because of the last moment before a Great Revelation.

"Remember this!" Susan ranted on, "while you slave away as my enslaved servant slaves, to do with as I desire! The name of your conqueror: Sandra, master of the secret spell of Plot Compression!"

Silence got another few seconds of sovreignity.

"Oh Hyne, take me now..." Squall murmured before he passed out from the weight of idiocity.

His world flooded with darkness and he only vaguely heard Rinoa's gasp as she too fainted.

~*~

*Look! Now I've even made a crossover, to Trigun! Zell is apparently Vash's other long-lost brother! They kinda have the same hairstyle, so it makes PERFECT sense!

And of course, Trigun and Vash belongs to the creators of that lovely anime.