Chapter 9: Motion
"West plaza, clear," came a report over the radio as Sergeant Ed Richards slowly rotated his rifle, scanning the east end of plaza as the President was giving his speech. The Dollet Marine was keeping his eyes open and alert, watching the entire area under his responsibility intently. Fisherman's Horizon was a nightmare for counter-sniper operations, especially in this situation . . . A sniper could be anywhere out there amid the tangles of struts, pipes, buildings, and equipment.
"Northwest plaza, clear," came another report. Sergeant Richards kept scanning for a moment, and then paused as his sight neared a building. He began to move the sight away when a voice cut in over his radio from his commander.
"East plaza, check that building at your eleven o'clock," came a quick order, and Sergeant Richards shifted his aim back toward the building.
"Anything suspicious?" he asked, his heart beating a little faster.
"I thought I saw something over there, movement at one of the windows."
"Roger," Richards said, and began to scanned the building. He paused as he noticed something at one of the ground-floor windows, extending slowly outward from the window as the President was finishing his speech. It looked like the barrel of a-
"Sniper! East plaza!" Richards shouted, and fired, the crack of his rifle echoing across the gathering below.
A bullet slammed into the wall right beside Squall's head, and he leapt back, pulling his rifle away. If anyone had been watching, they would have seen slightly satisfied smile on Squall's face as he did so. An instant later, more rounds from the unseen snipers slammed into the walls and lanced through the window. Squall ducked and rolled out of the line of fire, taking cover behind the wall.
Dollet and Galbadia's snipers were smart. When Squall had poked his rifle out of the window, they had spotted the barrel, rightly come to the conclusion he was a sniper, and had reacted with quick, overwhelming firepower.
Just as Squall had planned.
"Unacceptable, Squall!" Illarra shouted into his earpiece. "You failed! Now you're going to have to pay the price . . . And you'll have to explain this to what's left of your sister if she ever comes back."
"No!" Squall quickly said into the radio. He had hoped that delaying the assassination would earn him some time to think or maybe escape, but Illarra apparently wasn't giving him that option. Dammit!
"Okay, Squall, if you don't want anything to happen to Ellone," she continued. "Then you're going to have to go for Plan B. Kill them. Now. Get out there, fight past anyone trying to stop you, and cut down both Caraway and the Duke. Let nothing stand in your way. Understand?"
Squall didn't immediately respond, torn once more between Ellone and . . . Well, everything else.
"Do you understand, Squall!" Illarra barked, and he snarled into the radio, an inarticulate statement that nonetheless told her he understood.
"Good. No get out there, and make me proud."
Squall shook his head, and slowly stood up, even s sniper fire rained down on the building. He didn't have much time. Within moments the snipers would have radioed in his location, and an army of Galbadian, Dollet, and Garden troops would close in on his position.
Squall slowly drew Lionheart, not sure what he would do when that moment came.
Malachi's knife sliced past Zell's face and the brawler hopped back as his opponent came in. The soldier advanced cautiously, cutting across again, and Zell once more backed away, maintaining his defensive stance.
"Come on, SeeD," the soldier barked, a smile cutting across his face as he suddenly rushed forward, flipping the knife over and stabbing forward with it. Zell twisted aside, catching his arm as it passed before him, and clamped a hand on Malachi's wrist. He pivoted, and raised a leg, launching a powerful kick to Malachi's gut that doubled the soldier over, and spun, lifting him up into the air by his wrist and slamming him hard onto the metal walkway. Malachi bounced up into the air, but righted himself in mid-flight, landing on his feet and spinning around, leading with a stabbing blade.
Zell hopped back again and then to the side, skipping onto the railing along the walkway and jumping off with a spinning kick that caught Malachi across the face. The soldier was spun around, but rather than fall or stumble away in a daze, as Zell expected, he whipped back around with a kick of his own that impacted in the middle of Zell's chest.
The brawler was lifted off his feet and launched down the walkway, crashing heavily onto the metal about fifteen feet away. He scrambled onto his feet as Malachi closed in at shocking speed, blurring across the distance between them, and spinning around for a devastating axe kick. Zell rolled out of the way as the boot slammed down upon where he'd been laying, denting the metal. The brawler came out of the roll by reversing his momentum and shooting forward at Malachi with a rising knee jab to the chin that snapped the man's head back. Zell followed through by grabbing Malachi's knife hand.
See how good you are without a weapon!
Zell snapped the soldier's wrist with a flick of his own, and Malachi yelled in pain, falling back and clutching his hand as it poked out at a completely unnatural angle. However, to Zell's surprise, his hand still clutched the long knife tightly, and after a moment, the soldier stopped clutching his hand and looked up at Zell with a weird, knowing smile.
"Last guy I killed tried that one, too," he commented, and with a sickening series of cracks and pops, Malachi's hand seemed to move right back into place, as if Zell had never broken it. The brawler watched in amazement as the soldier switched his knife to his other hand, and then flexed the fingers on the appendage that had been broken.
"What the hell . . . ?"Zell asked, and Malachi chuckled.
"Let's just say that I'm the first of your replacements," he explained. "SeeD's obsolete now. I'm the future." Malachi flew forward suddenly, and Zell responded with a quick spinning kick that caught him under the jaw and sent the airborne soldier spinning end over end across the walkway. He landed on his feet and shot ahead again, flashing toward Zell even faster than before. The brawler raised his fists, preparing another kick, when he jerked back, his chest exploding in pain.
Malachi grinned, twisting his knife inside Zell's chest as he did so.
"Judging by where I hit you, I pierced your left lung, SeeD," he explained clinically. "Not immediately lethal, but it can kill you in the heat of battle."
Zell's response was to suddenly close his hands around the knife in his chest and pull it out, with startling speed, and then launch himself into a backflip. Both his feet slammed into Malachi's chin and sent him tumbling through the air again. Zell landed, stumbling as he felt his feet almost buckle, and planted a hand to his chest, sending pulsing waves of healing energy through his body and into his wound. As he watched, Malachi rose shaking his head, and laughed.
"Good," he hissed. "That one actually hurt."
Malachi jetted forward again knife stabbing at Zell's gut. The brawler slapped both hands down on his foe's wrist as he came in, and his head snapped forward. Both their skulls impacted, hard, but to Zell's surprise, it was Malachi who won, the impact hurling the brawler back. Not even fazed by the impact, Malachi leapt up into the air, knife held in an overhand, stabbing grip, and dropped toward Zell. The blade in his hands was poised to stab directly into Zell's throat.
Malachi fell, and Zell brought both his hands up, as well as his feet. His heels caught Malachi in the stomach while his hands grabbed Malachi's wrist as the knife dove in. It stabbed down into Zell's throat before the blade was stopped cold, digging a small shallow cut.
"Damn," the soldier cursed. "I had you . . . ."
"Not . . . today." Zell pushed back against the knife, forcing it up away from his neck. Malachi's response was to widen his grin and push down harder, with both hands. The knife began to descend, blood dripping from its tip. Zell snarled and pushed back as hard as he could, but Malachi, amazingly, was stronger than even Zell.
The knife slowly descended, and began to dig into Zell's flesh once more.
"Raptor Lead, do you have good tone?"
"Copy that, Ragnarok. We are locked on to target."
"Copy that, Raptor Lead. Beam cannon charged. On your mark."
"Raptor Squadron, on my mark . . . Fox Two!"
The soldiers closed in, and Laguna, Fujin, Raijin, and Ellone clutched their weapons tightly. They were not about to give up without one hell of a fight.
"Lower your weapons," an officer demanded, and Laguna narrowed his eyes. He opened his mouth, about to give a retort, when what sounded like a thousand mighty fists hammering against metal came from the direction of the massive hangar doors. The metal began to deform and everyone's attention was shifted to the doors, and then without any further warning, the portal simply exploded inward, a horizontal column of fire and smoke as wide as one of the Garden knock-offs floating around them.
The noise from a powerful set of engines filled the room, and then, like a mythical dragon erupting from a blazing volcano, the Ragnarok swooped into the chamber, belching fire and destruction from its machineguns.
The response from the soldiers was immediate. At once, the entire group of enemy troops whirled and opened fire as the Ragnarok's cannons blew apart a walkway filled with Estharian troops, sending men and parts thereof flying. Bullets bounced off the armored plating while plasma dissipated harmlessly against the shining, ablative armor of the powerful airship.
Ragnarok cut in its anti-gravity generators, and stopped in mid-air, hovering as what looked like thousands of bolts of energy bounced off its armor plating, barely singing the reflective metal. The response from the airship silenced entire platoons of enemy soldiers at once as its cannons tracked over catwalks thick with the enemy. Metal exploded, bodies vanished, and soldiers continued to fire from nearly every angle conceivable.
In this chaos and confusion, Fujin and Raijin had taken it upon themselves to secure an escape route. Without hesitation, Fujin grabbed Ellone, and Raijin grabbed Laguna, and both brother and sister leapt off the edge of the catwalk onto a clear one below. Before Laguna or Ellone could cry out in surprise, they had both landed on the catwalk below. Raijin dropped Laguna and whirled, smashing another unfortunate enemy soldier into the metal path, and they began to move toward a nearby platform loaded with machinery and equipment. If they could get there, they could signal Ragnarok for pick-up.
"What about Zell?" Ellone asked quickly, and Laguna glanced toward the brawler, his heart gripped by sudden fear as he saw Zell's vicious struggle against Malachi. Laguna's eyes then move dup, spotting a flicker of motion above, and he quickly pushed his comrades on.
"Go!" he ordered. "He can handle himself!" Fujin nodded, and cast a spell in the direction of the platform, a minor fireball that would nonetheless act as a makeshift flare, alerting the Ragnarok to their location.
Zell pushed up, moving the blade out of his skin, and snarled something as Malachi frowned. The soldier pushed back, driving the blade back down, slowly, millimeter by millimeter. The tip of the knife, stained with Zell's blood, dropped back in, digging slowly back into his skin.
"No." Zell's words were a firm denial, and he pushed back ferociously, driving the blade out of his neck and up, away from him. His muscles strained and complained as Malachi pushed down again, determined to finish Zell off.
They were so determined, so resolute to resolve this battle, that neither of them had noticed the explosions and destruction raging around them as the Ragnarok poured raw annihilation into the enemy ranks.
Malachi slowly moved the knife down, sluggishly overwhelming Zell's Guardian Force-enhanced strength. Bit by bit, the blade descended, and Zell knew his time was running out. It began to pierce his flesh anew, and Zell gritted his teeth, fighting back with everything he had. The hot metal dug deeper.
Zell caught a flicker of light in the air, and without warning, the pressure suddenly vanished, and he was pushing the blade up out of his neck. Malachi was recoiling, clutching his hands to his chest, and a curved blade that had been driven through his back and out the front of his torso.
Behind him, skin blackened and clothes charred, a battered Lex hit the catwalk and ran forward, grabbing his katana and yanking it out of Malachi's back. He swung the blade over his head, intending to chop it down at the soldier's neck and slice clean through, when Malachi leapt up and over Zell. He landed behind the wounded brawler and spun, the hole in his chest even then starting to seal up somehow. The soldier grinned and raised his knife arm, preparing to return to the battle.
A spotlight swept over the trio, and this was followed an instant later by the roar of massive cannons as the Ragnarok swept its fire over Malachi's position. With shocking speed, Malachi seemed to flash away, running down the catwalk as fire chased after him. He leapt up into the air, landing on another catwalk over fifty feet above him, and kept running as Ragnarok's cannons pursued. Within moments, Malachi had vanished, and Ragnarok turned back toward Zell and Lex, opening its forward entry ramp. As it drifted near the catwalk. Raijin stood at the entrance, leaning down, and extended his hand.
"Come on!" he yelled, and Zell turned, lifting the badly injured Lex and carrying the wounded SeeD with him toward the ramp. Plasma fire came from every conceivable angle, but none of it struck the two SeeDs as they leapt onto the airship's ramp and hurried up it. Ragnarok gunned its engines and backed away from the complex of catwalks and platforms, and spun toward the hole it had blasted in the doors. The engines flared like miniature suns, and Ragnarok leapt out into the free air.
Zell set Lex down on the deck, and Fujin immediately began casting healing spells over him while Laguna hurried to grab a medical kit off one of the bulkheads. While this was happening, Zell grabbed Ellone's hand and quickly started toward the bridge.
"What is it?" she asked as Zell ran frantically through the halls of the airship.
"We need to get in touch with Garden!" he shouted. "They're forcing Squall to kill people, and until he knows you're safe he's going to keep doing it!"
Rinoa hurried through the streets. The moment she's heard word Squall had escaped, she knew where he'd be going. He had promised her that he wouldn't attempt to hurt her father, but Rinoa knew Squall, and knew how far he would go when he was desperate. Thus, she had set out to find her father and warn him that Squall might try to kill him.
But when she had heard the gunfire from the direction of the train station plaza, Rinoa knew instantly that things had gotten very bad. She immediately hurried in that direction, praying that Squall had not done what she had feared he'd done. She dashed through the streets as fats as she could, adding some magical assistance to her speed as she sprinted.
Rinoa passed by an electronics store with a series of televisions at the front, the kind that were always showing the news to people who passed by, and hesitated. The image on the screen showed a jerky television camera recording people in the plaza running around, soldiers fanning out, and her father and the Duke of Dollet being ushered away by their bodyguards.
Relief flooded Rinoa as she saw both were uninjured, but that didn't last long. Squall, if he was responsible for the conflagration, might still be trying to get close enough to hurt them, and if he was, she had to stop him. If he wasn't the assassin, then it was even more important she try to protect her father.
Rinoa turned and started past the building. She ran in front of the alley between the store and another, adjacent building, when a hand shot out, clamped around her wrist, and yanked her into the alley.
Rinoa barely had time to let out a gasp of surprise when her arm was wrenched around behind her back and she was pushed up against the wall. She reacted quickly, however, beginning to call up the magical powers of a Sorceress, when something slid around her pinned wrist.
She felt as if the lights had suddenly been turned off. Her magical powers suddenly were stripped away, her ability to sense energy and life vanishing into nothingness, leaving Rinoa figuratively blind. An electrical shock seemed to course through her body for a moment, and in that instant of confusion, her other hand was pulled around behind her and manacled as well.
The words clicked in her mind as she realized what had happened. They were using some type of Odine-made restraints on her. Rinoa twisted her wrists, trying to slip out of the restraints, but her attackers wouldn't let that happen. She was shoved viciously deeper into the alley, where someone grabbed her chin and wrapped a cloth around her mouth, gagging her. She struggled and fought viciously, until another of her attackers slugged her across the face.
Rinoa fell back, dazed, and the men quickly manhandled her down the alley.
"Get her to Illarra," one of them snarled. "Fast!"
Within seconds, Rinoa had simply vanished from the face of Fisherman's Horizon.
The door blew open at the end of a heavy Galbadian boot, and a trio of heavily armed and armored Galbadian soldiers swept into the room, raising rifles and starting to sweep the interior of the structure the sniper had been found within. The lead soldier had just entered the room when he saw a man right in front of him, literally within arm's reach, brandishing a blue-white sword of some kind.
Squall was then right in the man's face, the butt of Lionheart shooting up into the man's chin and rocking his head back. His left hand closed over the rifle of the soldier on that side and lifted it up, and his left knee shot up into the man's stomach. Squall's right arm snapped across into an elbow that smashed the nose of the third soldier, and Squall's left leg shot forward. His boot slammed into the soldier ahead of him, lifting him up off his feet and hurling him out the door, into the soldiers gathered outside. The flying body threw the enemy soldiers into momentary confusion, and Squall dashed out the door, leaping over the tangle of bodies.
His jump sent the SeeD Commander hurtling through the air, over the crowd outside the door. A group of Galbadian troops directly behind them was gathered where Squall was coming down, but the sheer speed by which he had struck gave the SeeD the advantage of surprise. He came down hard on one man, stomping him down into the concrete pavement, and came up with a right hook that sent another soldier sprawling,. Squall whirled, foot lashing out and launching a third soldier away, while his left hand drew one of his knives and stabbed it down into a fourth man's thigh, just above his knee. The man cried out in pain, and Squall bowled the soldier over and dashed away.
Within moments, the sniper had vanished, but not for long. Squall circled around and neared the plaza within moments, gunblade out and at the ready as he closed in. Teams of soldiers were fanning out, defending the main platform as another group began to push the two leaders he was targeting to safety.
"Get after them, Squall," Illarra ordered. "Kill them. Kill them all."
Squall hesitated, clenching his teeth tightly, and finally, after an agonizing second of consideration, started forward, fingers wringing tightly around the handle of his gunblade.
"This is bad," Cid commented as the volume in the command center quadrupled as reports poured in. The map on the main screen switched to show the main plaza, with hundreds of blue and green dots signifying Galbadian and Dollet soldiers as they fanned out. A single red dot indicated the building where Squall had been spotted.
"The reports indicate he wasn't using lethal force," Xu reported. "He's trying to avoid killing anyone."
"No," Cid replied after a moment, shaking his head. "He's simply minimizing how many people he has to kill."
"Rinoa said that they were threatening Ellone," Xu added. "Would Squall go that far to protect her?"
"She's his family," Cid replied simply. "Squall holds family in the highest regard. He doesn't have much that can be harmed, but that which he does have, he protects fiercely. He'll do whatever he has to in order to keep her safe . . . but he'll do whatever it takes to find a way out of this without hurting anyone else."
"Headmaster!" came a call from one of the technicians, and both Cid and Xu looked to the man. "We've got a transmission from Ragnarok! Its urgent!"
"Patch it through," Cid ordered, and he and Xu grabbed a set of two-way radios, clipping them to their ears.
"Ragnarok, come in," Cid called, and there was a pop of static, followed by the voice of the pilot.
"This is Ragnarok," the pilot named Mike said. "We've just successfully extracted the survivors from the train attack from enemy hands."
"We?" Cid asked. "What's going on?"
"Long story, sir," Mike replied. "My ship and Esthar's Raptor Squadron were able to locate an anomalous distress beacon and track it to an island with an Estharian military base apparently loyal to the terrorists. We located an underground hangar and were able to breach it an extract the survivors of the attack."
"Who survived?" Xu asked quickly.
"Zell, Lex, President Loire's bodyguards, along with the President and his daughter, ma'am," Mike replied.
"You've rescued Ellone?" Cid asked immediately.
"Yes, sir, she's right here in the cockpit with me," Mike replied. Cid turned toward another technician.
"Harmon, get online with FH's communications network, now!" he ordered. "We need to patch a broadcast through to the entire city! I don't care if we have to hack their networks, but we need to send this message, now!"
"Yes sir!" replied the technician.
Two Dollet troops were standing outside the plaza, rifles up and eyes open for threats. Unfortunately, they lacked the reaction time, experience, and simple skill to intercept Squall in the brief instant he revealed himself.
The SeeD Commander ducked around a piece of machinery and bolted forward, shoulder-blocking one soldier and launching him into the frightened crowd within the plaza, and spun into a high kick that sent the second man flipping end over end across the battlefield.
Squall dove into the crowd before anyone else could react, and pushed through the collection of startled civilians. He didn't draw a weapon, and thus no one realized his intent until he began to near the platform a moment later.
Three Dollet soldiers were standing on the edge of the platform directly before Squall as he barreled through the crowd, instinct driving him on. There was no hesitation, no thought; Squall couldn't allow himself to think. If he did, he would have realized what he was doing, and to do that would cause him to simply stop in place, refusing to allow himself to go on in the face of the crime he was being forced to commit.
Squall Leonhart was the creature of instinct now, a pure, unthinking soldier, tempered only by a desire to minimize who would die today. Squall would not, under any circumstances, kill an innocent Galbadian or Dollet soldier. Enough innocent blood would be shed in moments; Squall would not spill a drop more.
The SeeD Commander leapt up onto the platform, gunblade seeming to simply appear in his hands. The soldiers before him whirled to face Squall, forming a quick line and jabbing their bayonets at him as he charged. Squall stopped before the stabbing blades and recoiled. The soldiers advanced again, but then Squall reversed his momentum and launched himself over the top of the enemy formation, landing behind them. Even as the Dollet troops turned smartly, bringing their bayonets to bear again, Squall fell upon them with a rising kick that decked one man. His knife stabbed out, taking a second in his gun arm, while the butt of Lionheart smacked into the forehead of the third man, denting his helmet inward and blasting him into unconsciousness.
Without hesitation, the instinctual warrior Squall had become shot forward, away from the falling soldiers before they had even hit the ground, and closed in on a crowd of Galbadian and Dollet troops surrounding and herding away to two leaders, Duke Haroldington and President Caraway. He raised his gunblade, but a momentary flash of hesitation struck Squall ahs he saw their faces.
Wha would he do if he reached them? Could Squall summon the will to punch through their guards and strike the two men down? Would he be able to kill two men undeserving of his wrath?
Would Ellone want him to do that?
Squall's momentary hesitation vanished as another foe stepped into his path, stabbing forward with a bayonet. Squall snapped his gunblade across, parrying the blade, but was surprised as the soldier deftly maneuvered the weapon around and caught Squall's flat-sided counterattack. The man stepped ahead, stabbing with the bayonet in the opening Squall had presented and the SeeD fell back, once again parrying the thrust. A rifle butt shot up after his blade, and smacked Squall across his chin. He snarled and rushed forward, catching a glimpse of his opponent.
Gray eyes, blonde hair, experiencedexpression . . . .
"Randolph!" Squall growled as the Dollet general caught his furious charge and turned it aside. His foot snapped forward and caught Squall on the chin, rocking his head back, and Randolph jabbed his weapon forward, the blade almost digging into Squall's neck.
Squall could have parried, but he held back, keeping his gunblade low as the blade poked into his throat. Randolph paused, weapon leveled at squall, and in that instant, a complete silence fell across the plaza, broken only by hundreds of boots and dozens of cocking rifles as Galbadian and Dollet troops leveled their weapons at Squall. A dozen red tracers fell across his chest, face, and throat, marking the snipers scattered around the plaza as they homed in.
"Squall," Randolph breathed in shock, eyes meeting the Commander's.
"Yeah," Squall replied quietly. "Yeah, that's right."
"You were the sniper?" he asked, not believing what he was seeing, and Squall nodded slightly.
"Why?" the general asked, and Squall didn't respond. Unnoticed, he clenched his fist tightly."Why the hell did you do this?"
"I can't tell you," Squall responded truthfully.
"Why?" Randolph demanded.
"Get out of my way." Squall's order was the kind that would make lesser soldiers, and even experienced SeeDs, back away, but Randolph didn't budge.
"I can't do that," Randolph replied, muscles tensing. "What will you do? Kill me?"
"No," Squall replied, and his fist opened.
Time slowed around the SeeD, and he bolted to the side, gunblade slapping Randolph's bayonet away. He dashed past the general, knife jamming into his gun arm, and then an elbow cracking into his backbone as Squall dashed forward. The SeeD Commander rushed at the bodyguards, letting his mind fly away from the horrors he knew he was about to see. A dozen thunder blasts filled the air, and pieces of the metal platform flew into the sky as sniper rounds slammed into the metal around him. The hastening spell propelled Squall forward, at his targets.
Squall Leonhart raised his gunblade, and asked anyone who was watching to stop him, to bring him down, to forgive him for what he had been forced to do for reasons he didn't know. Squall let out an enraged roar as his gunblade cast its light across the plaza, a cry of fury, sadness, regret, and hatred, at a dozen different people all at once. It was the cry of a desperate man, infuriated and helpless at the same time, and one who wanted desperately for a way out of this hell he had been thrust into.
"SQUALL!"
The voice resounded within his mind, the familiar tone causing his mind to grind to a complete halt, his ears open and hearing the next words more clearly than he'd ever heard anything in his life.
"Stop, Squall!"
Ellone.
She was telling him to stop. Was this a dream? Some desperate cry in his imagination? A subconscious demand inspired by his fervent desire to escape this situation?
"Please, Squall, stop!"
No. It was . . . It was real. Ellone's voice echoed across the plaza, a slightly mechanical tone to it that told him it was coming from speakers, not from his thoughts and memories.
Squall's feet slowed, his gunblade dropping, his face, locked in a pained grimace, melting into disbelief.
"I'm safe, Squall," she continued. "We all are. Zell, Laguna . . . Everyone is safe. You . . . You don't have to keep fighting anymore."
For a few moments, a silent breeze passed among the collected soldiers, civilians, leaders, and the one tormented SeeD standing on the plaza, the wind carrying the scent of the ocean before his nose. Squall took a deep breath, and then his gunblade clattered to the plaza, his hands no longer possessing the strength to lift it.
Warmth flowed down Squall's face, and he reached up, his bare fingers coming away with the hot tears he was suddenly crying. Squall felt his knees go weak, and he fell forward, dropping painfully to one knee, and then the next, propping himself up with one hand as a thousand emotions flooded him. Finally, he settled on relieved euphoria, and a rare sound escape his lips.
Squall laughed. He let out a laugh, the sobbing laugh of a reed man, someone safe from the shackles that bound him, a man newly returned to a life he had expected he'd never see again.
It was over, Squall knew. Ellone was safe, and he was free. He continued to laugh for a moment, and then, a hand fell over his shoulders. He looked up, to see Randolph, shoulder bleeding, standing over him, offering him a hand. Squall slowly reached up and took the general's fingers into his own, and rose to his feet.
"Safe your weapons!" came an order, and president Caraway rushed over to Squall, followed by a bewildered Duke Haroldington. All around them, Galbadian and Dollet soldiers lowered their rifles, and the dozen red dots on Squall's body winked off.
"Squall, are you okay?" Caraway asked, and Squall slowly nodded, tears still staining his cheeks.
"Yeah," he whispered. "I'm fine now." Then, deliberately, Squall reached up to his ear, and pressed the earpiece within more tightly to his eardrum.
"You get all that?" he asked his distant foe.
After several long moments, Illarra finally spoke, a steady, yet clearly angry, tone apparent in her voice.
"Yes, Squall, we did," she replied. "Bravo. It looks like your friends pulled through for you after all. They saved Ellone, and now I have no leverage over you. Thus does my grand plan end in failure. So sad, too bad."
Squall narrowed his eyes. She was taking things way too calmly for someone whose entire plan had been ruined.
"Cid is alive, Caraway and the Duke are alive," Squall continued, as the soldiers around him listened intently to his one-sided conversation. "And I haven't killed anyone today, despite what you did to me. Its over, Illarra, and we'll find you soon enough."
"Yes, I know," Illarra replied. "So, to end this all, let's go out with a bang, hm? Garden is to your left, right? Say goodbye to it."
Squall looked in that direction, prompting the crowd to do the same, and watched Balamb intently. Several moments passed by silently, the crowd waiting in hushed anticipation for whatever Squall was expecting.
"What the hell!" Illarra suddenly demanded. "Where is the explosion?"
"You made a lot of mistakes," Squall hissed with a knowing smile on his face. "The least of which was failing to account for the chance I could have left those technicians loose and untied." He didn't mention Rinoa's powers, as that was classified information that none of the people around him needed to know.
"You . . . ." Illarra's tone was now filled with raw anger.
"Its over," Squall responded simply. "You're finished. I'm going to look forward to when we meet face to face."
"Not yet," she answered. Then a moment later, the line went dead. Squall blinked, and cocked his head to the side, but she did not speak anymore. After a moment, squall let his hand dropped to his side, and sighed. He looked around, at all the soldiers gathered around him, along with the civilians, the journalists, and his fellow commanders, and a wry smile struck the SeeD.
"I need a drink."
SeeDs from both Gardens had swarmed the plaza mere minutes after the conflict had been resolved. Squall had been taken aside, and Quistis, who had led the SeeD force after Squall, was speaking with him.
"So, it's over?" she asked, and he nodded, drinking from a bottle of water, the liquid splashing across his mouth in one of the most refreshing gulps he had taken in a long, long time.
"She has no handle on me anymore," Squall explained. "The threat against Garden is gone, and Ellone is safe. We've got a wall of SeeDs, Marines, and soldiers around the President and the Duke in case someone tries anything else. Zell is alive, and so is Laguna."
"Things could have been a lot worse," Quistis commented, and Squall nodded.
"Mike is up for a promotion, and I'm going to talk Cid into giving Garden medals to the Raptors who helped him with the air strike. Everyone else involved in that is needing praise. Zell, Lex, Fujin, Raijin, and Argus." Squall paused, giving a customary moment of silence to a fallen SeeD, something that had been all to common after the Battle of Centra three years ago.
"Its not completely over yet," Quistis continued. "Laguna warned us over the radio that things were very bad, and I heard reports that Kiros and Ward are taking an airship out here to meet with him privately about what he called a 'dire situation of state.' I don't know what's possibly worse, though. I heard that the Wiseman Committee was wiped out in a bombing, excepting the Director of Intelligence, Crell Varines. He's in acting command of Esthar until Laguna returns."
"We have to track down Illarra, too," Squall added, his voice projecting his determination.
"We'll find her," Quistis assured him. "No one is leaving FH. What she did was a direct attack against Garden, Dollet, and Galbadia. No one is resting until her entire operation is uprooted."
"That's the problem," Squall responded, and he tapped his ear, where the earpiece was still located. He didn't want to remove it, instead wanting to keep the device on him until he could get back to Garden where he could hand it over to the technicians personally. Besides, one never knew when Illarra was going to come back with a taunt or message, and one that might finally lead him, and the rest of the assembled militaries, down on her head.
"She hasn't contacted us, and we don't know where she is. A search could take days."
"Then we'd better get to work," Quistis continued. "Ragnarok will b landing in a few hours, and judging by what Zell was saying, things are looking pretty bad. They wouldn't say much on the radio, but it doesn't sound good."
"Great," Squall answered. He sighed and took another sip of water. "Where's Rinoa?"
"She went out looking for you after you escaped," Quistis replied. "I haven't heard from her since. You'd think she would have gotten here by now, with the whole disturbance."
Squall nodded, but didn't say anything for a moment. Finally he looked away.
"I need to see her again, after all of this," he muttered, and Quistis nodded as well. She knew what he was experiencing: in the wake of the intense emotions, he needed a lifeline to hold onto, something Quistis couldn't provide. He needed someone he loved more intimately than a close friend. Squall needed Rinoa.
"Ill see if we can find her," she promised, and moved off, leaving Squall alone. He watched her vanish, and then turned, looking off at the two Gardens in the distance. Everything was still standing, something he hadn't hoped would happen by the end of this day.
"Finally," a voice cut in, jolting Squall. "Thought that dumb bitch would never shut up."
"You," Squall hissed at Illarra, and she laughed.
Yes, wonderful me," she replied. "Did you miss me, honey?"
"What do you want?" Squall demanded.
"I know something you don't know," she answered in a sing-song voice, and her tone made Squall feel a cold shiver run through his body. She was far too calm . . . Did she have something new up her sleeve?
"The thing I know is this, Squall," she continued. "I know the answer to a question you've just asked moments ago: Where, oh where, is Rinoa?"
Squall's blood ran cold. No. She didn't . . . .
"The answer, of course, is that she's right here, in front of me," Illarra answered happily. All tied up, kinda kinky. Complete with Odine-brand restraints, making her absolutely helpless. Simmons would love it, but he's dead, and the dead don't get hard-ons . . . That we know of, at least.
"Things are very simple, now, Squall," she continued. "South side docks, warehouse in front of Pier Thirty-Two. I'll be there, with Rinoa. You have twenty minutes to get down here, alone. Feel free to bring your weapons, but if you don't come alone, I will cut off Rinoa's face and mail it to you. Understand?"
Squall was momentarily afraid, but that fear vanished, replaced by a sudden, intense rage. Illarra had already threatened Ellone, but now Rinoa?
But she had given up her location, and made an even greater mistake: she had let Squall bring his weapons.
"I'll be there," Squall hissed, and he tore the earpiece out of his ear, and hurled it away. The SeeD Commander turned toward the south side of Fisherman's Horizon, his blue eyes blazing with inner fires of rage and determination.
Squall had made a promise to himself when he had rescued Rinoa from the clutches of Esthar's sealing machine. It was an oath he would never, in his lifetime, break without fighting to the very end with all of his strength. As he had clutched Rinoa tightly in his arms, Squall Leonhart had sworn he would be damned if he let Rinoa go again.
Through heaven or hell, Squall swore he would rescue Rinoa.
His hands closed tightly around his gunblade, the lethal edge of Lionheart, and the warrior ran out of the plaza, cold fury in his gaze. Things had changed, and in Illarra's arrogance, she had forgotten what would occur if she had let a lion like Squall be free.
The lion was now the hunter.
-
What? you thought Squall was going to get off that easily? No way. But never fear, people! Up to this point, Squall's just been knocking people out. Time to get Lionheart bloody. Heheheheh...let's just say that "massacre" is not going to be enough to describe the next chapter. Setting things up for a climactic confrontation!
Shout-Out-Thingies!
OniRazz: Actually, Malachi is based more off Krauser from Resident Evil 4. Complete with slashy-killy knife. And hee hee, peopel thought Lex actually died! Silly people, remember that if you don't see the character's death, his death may not have occurred!
Psylockian Emperor: Aha! You've stumble dupon my secret weakness! I was wondering when someone would figure it out. I can't really write very well on my own. I come up with ideas, but often I need soemthignt o base my thoughts and focus on. I take a lot of inspiration and ideas, and I build on them, brekaing them down, recombining them, and forging something new. I make new ideas out of old ones, so to speak. That's my real strength, and my biggest weakness.
Aw, you don't like Quistis not kicking ass? Wait and see, my friend, wait and see. That fight scene didn't actually include any Aikido, as Aikdo is focused on counters, directing energy, and grapples. Alucard, like Slayer,just punches things :P
Dr. Kadowaki, the traitor? Now that's an original idea. However, as I showed in the previous chapter, the traitor is distinctly male.
DBZ Fanficiton Queen: Oh, don't worry about Alucard. He'll be back real soon.
Yeah, Laguna went hardcore there, didn't he? Old men can kick ass! Die, Simmons, die! As to Illarra and Squall, I say nothing! NOTHING!
Ah, so that's who he is. I always figured his laid-back American voice fitted Zell best. Either him or Seifer. Hmm.
Xephon: I love it when people hate villians so much!
Solid Shark: Bing bing! We gotta winner, here! That "Think dragon, with eyebrows' was a reference to Corran's "Think Hutt, with eybrows." line. Chris, I can't believe you missed that. Shame shame.
Kolostramin Indincranin: Hee. Yes, I love a good cliffhanger, don't you? And Illarra won't get Lionheart through her face for a while. She will get her ass kicked repeatedly, however.
Chris Ganale: If I knew which song that was, it probably would kick ass. XD
Leonhartilly: Heh. Yes, Rinoa got captured, buit that just means Squall is going to be even more pissed off. Expect one hell of a battle next chapter.
LittleGenius90: I love it when people think a character died, and they return out of the blue!
JadeAlmasy: Well, hurry up, jeez! Squall's life is just starting to work out, and suddenly, pow! His lover gets kidnapped and he goes berserk! He just can't get away from all this hell, huh?
Katy: I may be evil, but nopt so evil as to have Squall kill an innocent man. Then again, maybe not.
That everyone? Awesome. Now, I have to pee. Information overload, yes.
Until next chapter!