Chapter 3: Duress
The snowmobile cruised across the open, rolling plains of Trabia, a few hundred miles southeast of Trabia Garden. The white paint job blended in well with the terrain, and the covered cab of the vehicle provided protection for its occupants from the icy cold of Trabia's usually frigid climate.
"So, how far are we?" Irvine, seated in one of the rear seats, asked.
"Couple of miles, a few minutes from the edge of the forest," answered the blue-clad Trabian SeeD driving the vehicle, a man named Reggie. "The hunting lodge should be a couple of minutes into the woods, not too far away."
"Those hunters know their thing," commented the second SeeD in the front of the vehicle, named Victor. "They go in and out of this lodge while out in the forest. They see everything going on out in the woods. We've chatted with them before."
"Then they'll know about the Demon," Selphie finished from her spot next to Irvine in the backseat. She, like Irvine, was clad in a thick white uniform, SeeD cold weather gear. Unlike Selphie, though, Irvine had opted to wear his hat on top of his head, and had insisted on donning a white trenchcoat to conceal the arsenal of guns he carried on hand.
"This Demon keeps sounding more and more like a silly fairy tale," Irvine commented, and both the Trabian SeeD chuckled.
"Hey, they pay, we look," replied Victor. "Contract is only so we can canvas the woods the Demon is supposed to be living in. If we don't find it, we can leave."
"And if we do?" Selphie asked.
"Report it and capture it," replied Reggie. "Not that I think we'll see anything out there. The hunters will tell us if anything's up, and they know the facts, not the local superstitions."
"A cakewalk," Selphie said with a smile. "Even if it is chilly, this mission'll be a breeze."
Irvine glanced at her, and nodded. She turned her head and looked at him for a moment, and their eyes, brown and green, connected briefly. Irvine then turned away, not quickly or defensively, but smoothly. He did well to keep his cool around Selphie, especially considering his feelings for her, and the mutual feelings he knew she was developing for him.
It was kind of silly, Irvine mused as he looked outside, into the rolling snowy plains, steadily giving way to young, snow-covered saplings and pine trees as they neared the forest. Here he was, Irvine Kinneas, professional ladies' man of Galbadia Garden, a certified expert on women, who had helped dozens of guys get hooked up with dates and girlfriends, most of which were strong, stable relationships. He knew how to smooth-talk, he knew precisely what to say, and when, and he was still a damn virgin at twenty years, with a dozen years in Garden himself.
Irvine chuckled at the irony of his situation. Yeah, he was great at talking with women, knowing how to act around them, but for some reason he never truly took advantage of that. He simply didn't want to sleep with someone he didn't really care for. While Irvine was skilled with the women, he had his honor and his dignity; if he didn't, he guessed that there would have been well over a dozen girls at Galbadia and Balamb Gardens that would have been removed from the organization due to an unexplained pregnancy.
So, there he was, a smooth-talking man who could get any girl he wanted if he tried, and the only girl he really cared for was right beside him at that moment, creating a problem for him. Namely, that he was willing to go further with the relationship between them, but happened to be a bit scared because he was actually willing to do that. Irvine had never been in a full, complete relationship with another person before, and he wanted one with Selphie.
"What is it?" Selphie asked him, apparently having heard his chuckle, and he shook his head, glancing back to her.
"Joke Zell told me," he replied. "Bit dirty, won't stain your ears with it. And those two upstanding gentlemen in the front are a bit too young for it."
"Hey, keep your senile comments to yourself, old man," Victor shot back, and some laughter sounded in the car.
In the ensuing silence, Irvine looked away again. He and Selphie were close, no question about that. They had grown attached during the Sorceress War, in no small part due to him steadily insinuating himself in Selphie's routines and life. He wasn't aware of how close they had gotten until they had battled Adel, though. He remembered seeing Selphie get struck by the bolt of energy, and her agonized cry, which had galvanized the sharpshooter into an offensive frenzy that had annihilated Adel.
But perhaps the most striking part was what had happened after that during the battle against Ultimecia. Selphie had told him later on that, when he had been killed, she had been overcome by rage and unleashed hell on Ultimecia. Ultimately it had been futile, but the meaning behind her almost unthinking actions in response to his death spoke volumes. The reunion after the battle had been filled with emotion, and the two were inseparable for months after the fact. Even now, they were still very close friends, and plenty of rumors ran around Garden that Irvine and Selphie were more than just war buddies. But those rumors were just that: rumors.
Irvine wondered to himself how much Selphie did care for him. She loved him as a friend, no question, but as more than that . . . Did she love Irvine as he was hesitant to admit he loved her?
That question bothered him for a long time as they drove through the woods, down a moderately worn vehicle path toward a nondescript wooden cabin nestled among the snowy trees.
"There's the lodge," Reggie commented as they pulled up outside the structure. "Huh. Looks like no-one's home." The windows at the front were dark, and no smoke came out of the chimney of the mid-sized cabin.
"Let's go have a look," Selphie quickly suggested, and Irvine nodded. They opened the side doors of the snowmobile and climbed out, before moving toward the entrance of the old cabin. Irvine paused to check the safeties on his guns. Just in case.
"We'll stay here and watch the perimeter," Reggie added, and Irvine nodded as he and Selphie approached the silent cabin.
"Commander?" asked a female SeeD as Squall was checking over the updated intelligence files, and Squall looked up.
"Yeah?" He dropped the binder back onto the desk of the analyst he been speaking to.
"Sir, Information Retrieval just finished running that request on the name you gave them," she replied, handing him a binder. Squall nodded his thanks and opened it, glancing at the scant few files in the binder. No known records of any man named "Alucard". A check of Garden records showed that the name was not on any wanted lists or related to any contracts SeeD had performed in the last few years. The only thing that did show up that name was a listing of books in the library, filed under tertiary connections. They apparently all dealt with old Galbadian and Centran history.
Squall closed the binder and looked around, before spotting Quistis. He waved her over.
"What is it?" she asked as she neared, and Squall took out the file on the library books.
"Retrieval just gone done with the search on that name," he explained.
"That was fast," she replied, and he nodded as she looked over the file.
"No listings or connections we can find," he continued. "But the name is in a few history books. I'm thinking a pseudonym for this guy?"
"Possibly," Quistis commented. "Now that you mention these books, I may have read a few of them back when I was a cadet." She glanced back up at Squall. "You want to check the books now?"
"We have to keep a close eye on the city until the conference is over," Squall said, shaking his head. But then he paused, tapping his chin. "I know. Give me a second." He turned and went back up the stairs to his elevated office, closing the door and picking up the phone. He quickly tapped in a trio of numbers, connecting him to the apartment he and Rinoa shared.
"Hello?" Rinoa's voice picked up a couple of rings later.
"Hey, its me," Squall said, a slight smile creeping into his face as he heard her voice. "How are you doing?"
"Fine," she replied. "I was getting ready to head up to the dojo to train with Master Sabin in a little bit."
"Do you have a moment to help me out?" Squall asked.
"Sure, what do you need?"
"There was a suspicion man in Garden last night, and we were running a search on his name," Squall explained. "His name was 'Alucard.' You heard of it?"
"I might, why?" Rinoa asked, perplexed.
"Retrieval says that the only match we can find for his name is in a few books in the library. I was wanting to check them to see if they had any clues, but we're busy up here with the conference . . . ."
"And you're wondering if I can do the looking for you," Rinoa finished, chuckling. "Sure thing. I'll see what I can dig up."
"Thank you," Squall said.
"No problem," she replied. "How's it going up there?"
"Its rough," Squall replied. "There's a lot of coordination we have to do with Galbadia and Dollet-" Squall paused as a light flashed on his phone. "Hold on, there's an urgent call. Just a sec, okay?"
"Its all right," Rinoa replied. "I'll go ahead and head down to the library to have a look, okay?"
"Okay," he said. "Thanks again. Once this day is over I'll take you out somewhere."
"Hmm, I like the sound of Dollet food tonight," she said, and he smiled. "Have fun at work. Bye!"
"Goodbye," Squall said, a bit saddened when she hung up the phone. The Commander shook his head, and then cut to the other phone line.
"Commander Leonhart," Squall stated.
"Sir," came the voice on the other end, from one of the communications SeeDs down below. "We have an urgent call for you from someone claiming to be your sister."
"Ellone?" Squall muttered, surprised. "What is it about?"
"She said she really needed to talk with you," the SeeD replied. "Nothing else, though." Squall sighed.
"I'll talk with her for a moment," he said, shaking his head. Rinoa was holding for him, and now he had Ellone wanting to talk too? Well, at least she could tell him about how safe she was with her SeeD escort. He wanted to see her again, but what did she want to talk about that couldn't wait until she arrived in FH?
The line clicked as the call was transferred over, and he heard a voice speak on the other end.
"Hello, Squall," stated a cold female voice, someone who was distinctly not Ellone. He paused for a moment, and glanced outside.
"Who is this?" he demanded.
"Someone who's been wanting to meet you for a very long time, Squall," the woman replied, her tone suddenly shifting, taking on a darkly amused hue.
"Who are you?" Squall asked again, not in the mood for games.
"Well, I can tell you this, which may give you a clue as to the kind of person I am," she replied. "There's a binder on your desk that's about . . . A foot away from your personal laptop, filled with intelligence files on terrorists that may threaten the world conference today."
Squall froze. Having that kind of detailed information meant only one thing.
"That's right, Squall, we're watching you," the woman said, obviously completely amused by what she was saying.
Things had just gotten very complicated.
"Hello?" Selphie asked as she knocked on the door to the cabin. No response came, and after a few seconds, she repeated the knock and called out again. Beside her, Irvine waited, scanning the woods around the cabin with curiosity. He sniffed the air, and paused, scenting a tang in the air that he, and any experienced SeeD, knew well.
"Blood," he whispered, and Selphie glanced at him, then nodded. She tried to open the door, to find it unlocked but solidly barricaded. Irvine, wasting no time, circled around the cabin to one of the glass windows, to look in and try to open it, but stopped outside the window.
"Hey, Selphie!" he called. "The windows are broken!" she rounded the corner and saw that he was right, the glass window shattered, and blood coating the broken pieces still in the frame. On the snowy ground were small chunks of glass, and what looked dozens of foot prints in the snow. Irvine looked into the window, and saw only darkness in the cabin.
"Let me check it out," he told her, and vaulted over the windowsill, using a cleared section of the window. Selphie was right behind him, moving into the cabin, which Irvine quickly swept with his rifle. He paused after a moment, his stomach going sick as he looked at the interior, which stank of death and violence, the poignant scent of blood and cordite hanging in the air.
He guessed that there must have been three hunters in the cabin, judging by the bodies. One was slumped in the corner, a dozen vicious slashes across his chest, his hands still clenching a rifle tightly in dead hands. Another was stuck against the wall, run through with what looked like a spear to the chest, his feet dangling a foot from the floor. The last man was in the center of the cabin, his head severed, blood pooling on the wooden floor around his corpse, a stained machete still in hand.
There was a shocked gasp from behind him, and Irvine knew Selphie saw the same thing. The sharpshooter stepped forward, sweeping the area again, looking for anymore bodies, but found none in the room. Tables and chairs had been knocked over, and several broken weapons, swords and spears, lay around the room. Bullet holes pockmarked the interior of the wooden cabin. Some kind of intense battle had occurred here, Irvine knew instantly.
"What did this?" Selphie asked, and Irvine shook his head. He continued to look around the room, and saw that all the windows had been smashed open. Bullets were clustered around the windows themselves, as if the hunters had been shooting at foes coming in through them.
"Selphie, get the others," Irvine said, quickly. "We need to check the perimeter.
"Right," she replied. She turned toward the door, and saw it was barricaded by a heavy locking beam. She quickly removed the beam and stepped out the front, running to the other SeeDs out in the car. Meanwhile, Irvine moved through the cabin, looking for clues. He found more broken weapons, but no bodies of the aggressors, whoever or whatever they were.
Irvine paused as he neared the smoking, smoldering fireplace. He bent down and touched the ashes, noting that they were still warm, almost hot. This had only occurred a short while ago, maybe the previous day or sooner. The sharpshooter turned, scanning the interior for anymore clues, and his eyes fell upon an object lying in one of the pools of blood. It looked like an old, well-worn journal, knocked over during the battle. Curious, Irvine picked it up, and began to thumb through the pages, skipping toward the more relevant parts at the end of the book. The pages were soaked with blood, but some parts were still legible, though not much.
Eddie. I still remember his scream. The scary thing was he was the tough one, the guy who never screamed. I saw him face down a Snow Lion with two bullets in his rifle, and they . . . . . . . . . Those things, they scared even him, making him cry and scream as we ran. I think it was the . . . . . . . . . . . . That did him in. No man could fight that stuff. I mean, I'd heard the stories about SeeDs and all, but we couldn't fight it. It was . . . . . . . .
The rest of that page was splattered. Irvine frowned as he looked it over, and moved to the next page, which was clear, excepting a number of splotches. The writing was scratchy and shaky, as if the man writing it was terrified.
Surrounded. They tracked us back to the cabin. Vick barred the door, and we've moved the furniture in front of the windows. I can hear them, chanting, their voices . . . . . . . White robes, swords, sp . . . . . . .
Cackling. Hyne, I hear it, all around us. I hear their chants and the shouts. They're pounding on the furniture. My gun is right here, but I'm scared to pick it up. My hands are shaking. I can barely keep writing. Oneck is praying over in the corner, he's got his rifle, but he looks like he's going to shoot us as much as them. Vick has his machete and his gun, he's out there in the middle shouting at them yelling for them to bring it on. The wood is splintering. They're coming, they're coming and we're dead and . . . . . . . .
Irvine glanced down at the bottom of the page, the last word barely legible among the blood and the terrified, scribbled writing.
Demon.
"Reggie's radioing Trabia Garden with a report from the car," Selphie said as she walked back into the room. "Victor's searching the perimeter . . . What is it?" Irvine handed her the journal, and she spent a moment reading over the hunter's last words.
"White robes?" she murmured, thinking. "I've heard of something like that out here before, but I've never-" She paused as they heard Victor call them from outside the house. The two rushed outside, ready to draw their weapons, when they saw Victor standing on a low hill amidst the trees a short distance north of the cabin. He was crouched behind a fallen tree, a longsword in his hands by his side as he looked north. He glanced back, saw the pair, and waved them forward.
"What is it?" Selphie asked as they got close, crouching behind the tree with the Trabian SeeD.
"I saw someone to the north," Victor whispered. "Moving along the trees. I didn't get a good look."
"Where are they?" Irvine asked, reaching into his coat and pulling out the scope for a rifle. He peered through it, scanning the treeline for several moments, before he caught a flicker of motion.
"I see it," he whispered, zooming in. He caught a black-clad figure moving between two trees, and then across a small clearing where he got a good look at it. Or rather, her.
He saw short black hair, dropping to her shoulders, and a pretty face that looked oddly familiar somehow. Her skin was pale and clear, but not pallid or lifeless, and she wore what looked like a simple, loose, flowing black dress with long sleeves and white trim along the top, around her exposed shoulders. Irvine shivered at the thought of how cold she must be, but then noted the oddly smooth way she was moving as if her feet were not even touching the snow below her. There was something trailing behind her, a ghostly aura of some sort that Irvine couldn't place.
"What is it?" Selphie asked.
"It's a . . . a girl." Irvine lowered his scope. "Probably the kind I'd like to take out to dinner." His shoulder stung, and he glanced at Selphie, who wore a face of mock indignation.
"Should we go find her, ask her about what's happening?" Victor asked. "She might know more than we do about what killed those hunters."
"Good idea," Selphie said, nodding. She began to rise, when the three SeeDs spun, hearing shouts from the direction of the car, along with snarls and the sizzling discharge of fiery magic. The trio of SeeDs broke off and ran around the cabin, coming into view of the vehicle in time to see Reggie release another bolt of magic at a figure in front of him, which went spinning to the ground, engulfed in flames. However, rapidly surrounding the Trabian were more figures, holding spears, scythes, and curved swords, clad in-
White robes.
They wore loose white, hooded robes, armed with melee weapons. The same people described in the dead hunter's journal. Dozens of them were around the vehicle, closing in on the besieged SeeD.
"Reggie, behind you!" Victor shouted in warning, and the Trabian SeeD spun, magic coursing down his fingers, but only in time to take a curving sword to the gut. The SeeD doubled over, blood pouring from his stomach and over the blade, and dropped to his knees.
"Reggie!" Victor shouted in shock and fury, and he raised his left hand. Fire surrounded his arm and shot don through his fingers, exploding into the back of the white-robed figure that had struck Reggie down. The figure's back burst into flames, and it fell to the snow ablaze.
Irvine and Selphie were right beside him, magic shooting through Selphie's fingertips and out through her palms, a forking bolt of lightning that struck three of the robed figures, throwing them to the snow. Irvine's rifle kicked once, and then twice, then a third time as he fired on one of the figures. The first pair of bullets from his double-barreled rifle struck it in the back, staggering it, and the second pair knocked it to its knees. The third pair blew apart its hood and skull. Irvine shifted his aim, immediately realizing that the man should have gone down from the first shot to the back, yet had somehow survived the second pair of .50 caliber action express rounds. No normal human could survive that . . . except SeeDs.
Victor shifted his aim, fire magic striking down a second robed figure, when the burning man he had first attacked stood back up, robes blazing in the flames. The man seemed to ignore the fires, up until Victor blasted him a second time, finishing the man off. The other robed figures began to turn, casting their eyes at the SeeDs firing upon them, and at that moment, the SeeDs saw Reggie move. One he pulled his hands away from his stomach and held something out before him, a round, green object, and pulled a pin off it.
"Grenade!" Irvine shouted reflexively, and an second later the fragmentation grenade exploded, hurling shrapnel at supersonic speeds in every direction. Reggie himself was shredded in the blast, blown apart by the explosion, and all for the white-robed figures around him were either vaporized or blasted apart in the detonation.
Victor stared at the scene with wide-eyes shock. He and Reggie were friends, and to see Reggie just vanish in front of his eyes was something he wasn't prepared for. Victor had seen combat - he'd fought in the war between Balamb and Galbadia - but that hadn't prepared him for the death of a friend so suddenly and abruptly.
When the last of the dust settled, however, there were more pressing matters. Several of the white-robed figures, their cloaks and hood tattered in the blast, were standing back up, and others were appearing from the forest all around the vehicle. One, they saw, was carrying a torch, and rushing toward the car, while the others were beginning to charge up the path toward the cabin and the SeeDs, loosing snarling shouts and cries and brandishing weapons.
Those sounds were echoed in the forest around the cabin, and the SeeDs spun, reflexively putting their backs to one another, and saw that more white-robed figures were rushing through the trees all around them, closing in with weapons raised.
The man with the torch reached the car, and before any of the seeds could act, he thrust open the fuel intake port and thrust the torch inside. The vehicle exploded in a massive plume of fire that melted the snow in a wide radius around the vehicle, hurling debris everywhere and killing several more of the white-clad madmen. The SeeDs stared blankly for an instant at their destroyed vehicle, and then quickly turned, facing outward at the enemy as they closed in, shouting and screaming and chanting cried of death and violence.
Without a word, the SeeDs unleashed hell on the oncoming enemy. Fire lanced out from Victor, with waves of electricity and a half-dozen small icicles erupting from Selphie's fingers. The magic slashed and burned, throwing several foes to the ground, but these enemies began to rise again, undaunted by the magical fury. Beside them, Irvine fired quickly out into the enemy as they advanced, every shot a scoring a critical hit on his foes. They seemed to absorb torso shots well enough, barely staggering under the impact of the bullets, but head shots were still very lethal, and popping out their knees sent them facedown into the snow in front of him.
The initial barrage of magic had slowed the enemy advance, but the white-robed men kept on coming, rising from the blasted wounds in their bodies and charging, screaming inarticulate cries of bloodlust. They were close enough that the SeeDs could see their faces, pale-skinned, white eyed ones, with black paint slashing across their skin like dark scars. The men didn't look human, their faces contorted in displays of hatred and rage as they bore in. Magic felled several more, as did Irvine's carefully placed gunshots, but within seconds the enemy was too close, pressing in all around them.
Victor snapped up his longsword, catching a wild slash of a sword and deflecting it out wide. In the opening, he cut across, severing the robed man's head. As he fell, a bolt of fire shot out from his fingers and blasted away another of the white-clad men, and he spun, chopping across, slicing into the chest of an eager figure who was raising his sword. The man stopped, grunting in pain, and raised hiss word higher. Victor stabbed the man in the chest, and he fell away, clutching his torso, before rushing in yet again. A final slash tore off his head, and the man fell to the snow, dead.
Selphie whipped her nunchaku across, smashing a man's jaw and hurling him to the snow, and then brought the weapon across, sending one of the bars over a thrusting sword. The chain wrapped around the sword, and she caught the bar in her other hand. She savagely yanked the nunchaku, tearing the sword out of the man's hands, and whipped the weapon back around, the iron bar crashing into the white-robed figure's head and snapping his neck at a very unhealthy angle.
Irvine fired the last pair of shots from his Valiant into a robed man's face, shattering his skull and throwing the man to the ground. Another closed in, and Irvine tossed the rifle up into the air, catching it by the stock and swinging it across to catch the attacker's sword. The rifle blocked the blow, and Irvine quickly pulled out a pistol from within his coat and fired four shots into the man's gut in less than a second. The robed man fell back, wounded but not dead, and Irvine raised his pistol, firing into the man's throat and face. Three rounds later, the attacker fell, dead.
A half-dozen more men were sweeping in at Irvine, and he quickly dropped his pistol into the snow and yanked out a Calico machine pistol. He leveled the high-capacity, high-powered pistol at his attackers and hosed them, bullets knocking several off their feet and killing at least two of the enemy.
Irvine spun the Calico by its trigger guard, more out of habit than practicality, and slid the machine pistol back into its holster beneath his coat. At the same time, his right hand flicked, snapping open the action of his rifle and exposing the chambers. In the brief moment his covering fire had earned, he tossed the Valiant through the air before him, catching it with his left hand. He shook the rifle once, forcing the spent rounds free of the chamber. As the rounds fell free, his right hand grasped a small lever on the side of the rifle, and pulled it back, shifting the action of the rifle. Irvine's right hand grasped the rifle again by its stock, and his left shot down, grabbing a long, high capacity magazine from inside his coat, and slammed it into a now-opened ammunition port on the bottom of the rifle. Irvine's right hand wrapped around the handle and trigger, and his left pulled back the bolt on the Valiant, finishing the instant modification.
In the span of a second, the sharpshooter had shifted his rifle from a heavy double-barreled revolver-style semiautomatic rifle to a fully automatic machinegun. He leveled the machinegun at his foes and opened up, the high-caliber rounds ripping into them and laying them across the snow, dead or dying.
Victor parried a stroke and send a blast of magic right behind it, sending his foe spinning away with a shard of ice buried in his chest.
"There's too many!" he shouted, and Selphie nodded as she whipped her iron bars into the head of another crazed foe, throwing him away.
"Cover me!" she shouted, and closed her eyes, not waiting for an acknowledgement. Victor slashed and stabbed furiously, deflecting many attacks form her, while Irvine used his machinegun to blow away the enemy as they neared. The white-robed men came on, their swords and spears striking Selphie, but all deflecting off a transparent blue shield she had enacted before her. A moment later, she opened her eyes, and the snow around her trembled as an icicle shot up, contained within it a beautiful, shapely woman.
The icy guardian Force Shiva erupted from within the icicle, breaking free and wasting no time calling up frigid energies. In the cold, icy land of Trabia, Shiva was right at home, and her power over ice and cold was even stronger in the frozen northlands. Blue-white light surrounded her and collected in her hands, and then lanced out at a mass of the enemy, a white line of destruction that rapidly expanded, icing over a wide area, freezing a dozen of the enemy in their tracks. Shiva then snapped her fingers, and the ice shattered, along with the men contained within, breaking them into tiny frozen pieces. The ice Shiva had created vanished, leaving a path before the SeeDs, into the woods, clear of any enemies.
"Retreat!" Victor shouted, and he and Selphie wasted no time dashing down the opened path. Irvine was right behind them, firing at the remaining enemy as they closed in, charging and screaming for blood. The SeeDs plunged deeper into the woods, toward the only safety they could find.
"Who are you?" Squall asked, turning around, scanning the interior of the Garden office. Where were they? The spotters had to be somewhere, hidden cameras, observers, something telling them what was happening around him.
"You can call me Illarra, Squall," the woman replied casually. "Though by the end of the day you'll have some very bad words you'd rather call me by, I hope."
"What do you mean?" Squall demanded.
"My objective is to make your life a living hell," she replied, and he could hear her smile in her voice. "One step at a time, you are going to come to hate me more and more because of what I'm going to do to you today, Squall." Gears whirled in Squall's mind.
"You're planning an attack on the conference," Squall hissed, and he new he was right.
"Oh, yes,' she replied. "You are quite apt, Squall. But I won't just be causing rampant chaos and destruction today, ensuring the end of civilization and the rise of a new world order. I have something more planned, specifically for you, Squall. You will be aware, every second, of what will happen, and you will be able to do nothing to stop it, Commander."
"You want to bet?" Squall replied evenly. "One word, and I'll have every Dollet Marine, Galbadian soldier, and SeeD-"
"One word and you will want me to kill you to relieve your suffering," Illarra replied, cutting him off. "You have no idea the position you are in, Squall Leonhart. No idea whatsoever." She said something inaudible on the other end. "Now, Squall, listen carefully, because in a moment you'll be connected with a man under my employ named Simmons. We'll be having a nice three-way conversation with him. Ah, there's the connection now."
"Yo, this the big Commander of SeeD?" cut in a man's voice. Squall didn't answer, and after a moment the man continued. "Ah, well, I knew you weren't the talkative type. Doesn't matter right now, though, because you're going to want to listen very closely." There was a pause on the other end, and the man, Simmons, chuckled.
"You see, Commander, right now I have something that is of great interest to you. Say hi to your brother."
"What? Squall? Squall!" The feminine voice that suddenly cut in was startled, scared, desperate, and most importantly, a voice Squall knew very well, one that made his blood run cold.
"Ellone!" Squall suddenly exclaimed, hearing her voice on the other end. "Ellone!"
"Ah, yes, Commander," Simmons cut in immediately, laughing again. "That was your sister, Ellone Loire. She was supposed to be on a train to Fisherman's, but I and a few friends picked her up and took her for a ride after we blew it up and killed everyone on board."
Laguna? Zell? Dead? And Ellone . . . this man's hostage?
Squall felt his knees go weak, and he almost sat down, fear and shock working its way into his body, but very quickly being overridden by outrage and anger.
"Now, Commander, before you do anything rash, listen closely." Simmons' voice was replaced by a pained gasp from Ellone on his end of the line, and Squall froze.
"Now, all I did there was pull her hair back roughly. You know what, Commander? I'm going to admit something here. You sister is right here in front of me, on her knees, hands and feet tied up. Now, you do realize she is really freaking hot, right? I mean, I'm getting a hard-on just looking at her and her nice, soft skin and tender, exposed neck from me pulling her head back. I wonder what she looks like under these Estharian robes. I'd like to find out. In fact, I'd like to go fuck her brains out right now. Drag her into a back room, put some duct tape over her mouth, tear off her clothes, and, well, you know. In fact, at a word from Illarra, I can go do that, right now. I just need her orders."
Simmons' speech paused, and in the gap, there was the sound of a pistol's hammer cocking back.
"I also have a pistol here. It has fifteen rounds, and I have four extra magazines on my belt. I also have a dozen soldiers around me with fully charged plasma pistols, totaling about five hundred shots between them all. I know enough about the human anatomy that I could expend all that firepower on one person and leave them alive and conscious . . . And leave a girl with enough of a body to continue screwing her. I'm also great with knives, and I can rig up some electrical equipment around here as a makeshift torture machine. And I have healing magic and a rack of potions, meaning that after I get done with all that . . . I can fix her back up and do it all again.
"Now, Commander, what do you have to say?"
Squall didn't reply. Somewhere inside that long explanation, Squall's jaw had become firmly set, his hands shaking as they clutched the phone or empty air. His face was burning, and intense rage and fury was boiling under his skin. That this man, this bastard, would dare threaten his sister, and that he could do anything he had just outlined to her . . . .
"Oh, Squall," Illarra cut in, her voice low, and very pleased. It almost seemed . . . aroused. "I look at you. I see your hands shaking. I see your red face, you teeth clenched under your lips, your eyes burning with hatred. I can see that I'm already working you over, you're already understanding how helpless you are, and how much I am hurting you at this very moment. I can see you hate me, Squall. I can see your pain, your fury, your outrage . . . Squall, seeing you like this just makes me so hot."
Squall didn't immediately answer her, instead closing his eyes and thinking, hard. It wasn't easy, with dozens of emotions swirling under the surface in that moment; fury, shock, fear, anxiety, confusion, hatred . . . .
Squall opened his eyes, and stared straight ahead, narrowing them as he settled on one emotion to feel: anger.
"Maybe I should just have Simmons go rape her now?" Illarra asked, and Squall's pulse spiked at the sick pleasure she was taking with the thought. "How angry would that make you, Squall?"
He didn't respond. He didn't need to; she already knew how enraged he would be if she did that. But at the same time, Squall understood the position he was in.
"Well, then, let's get down to business, Squall," Illarra explained. "I'll lay the terms out, quite simply. You do exactly as I say. From this moment on, you will do precisely what I order you to do. If you don't, Simmons puts a bullet into a nonessential part of your sister and then gets to relieve his hard-on. And you'll be listening to it, too, Commander. Understood?"
Squall did not reply for a moment, but then finally spoke.
"Understood," he snarled.
"Of course, understanding simply means comprehension," Illarra replied, seeming to read Squall's thoughts precisely. "That's all I need, though. If you do not do what I say, bad things happen to your sister. So, you really have to obey me."
"What do you want?" Squall demanded. On the other end, Illarra laughed, a pleasant sound that lacked any pleasure or joy whatsoever.
"What else, Squall?" Illarra replied. "I want you to suffer. One way or the other you will hate me and yourself by the end of this day. Either you betray your sister to torment and rape . . . or you betray Garden, and the entire world."
-
Well, now. That's not good news. What's going to happen to Squall? What evil plans does Illarra have in store for him? And what of Irvine and Selphie?
Well, I'm not going to tell you guys. :P Next chapter we get an inkling of what's happening with Laguna and Zell, and just what Squall will have to go through in this really bad day.
References abound here, most notably the obviously 24-style storyline that's cooking up here. If you saw the first season, you may have an idea of what's in store for Squall. Also, many Resident Evil 4 references, especially the white-robed badguys.
And now, ripping off Prodigy, its . . . . Peptuck's Shout-Outs!
Chris Ganale: Actually, the infiltrator was just wearing standard Estharian armor.And Lex's fighting style is sort of a mix between Kenshin's and Johnny's from Guilty Gear. Funny you mention Hoth, by the way, I've got a few ideas there.
Oh, and Elites pwn Stormtroopers any day of the week. :P
Solid Shark: Trust me, you've not seen anything yet.
Kimahrigirl: Don't get too attached to the unique, new characters. They're pretty good, but, well, you never know what's going to happen.
DBZ Fanfiction Queen: Well, this chapter answers your question, doesn't it? Simmons is an evil man, isn't he? And oh, yes, Squall is pissed, no question there. I'd like to see that 24-style fic. This is heavily base doff that (my opriginal idea was soemthing like "24 Hours in Garden")
BahamuUltima: Oh, that, I don't mind I don't care if you copy/paste my works, just let me know if you're printing it.
Daniel Wesley Rydell: Well, I hope I don't get too sadistic with Simmons, but you never know. Heh.
Anime Obsessed Fan: Laguna may be old, but he can still put up a good fight!
Okay, that everyone? Great. Well, gee, not many reviews this time, huh? For shame, people.I like my reviews, they make me warm and fuzzy.
Until next chapter!