Chapter 13: Iceblood
"Ow," was the first word out of his mouth. In fact, pain was the first thought that went through Irvine's mind as he awoke, a throbbing pulse flashing throughout his head. There were other pains, too: soreness in his legs from all the running, an ache in his index finger from pulling the trigger on his rifle so often, a stinging pain from a crease along his shoulder where a spear had grazed him, and a tight, painful pressure on both his ankles and wrists, which were wrenched around behind him.
Irvine rolled over onto his back, and his eyes jerked open as his bare skin hit a shockingly cold floor. The room was white, a simple, bare chamber lacking any color. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, it was all one single shade of pure white, so perfectly colored that he couldn't even tell where they met.
And it was cold, too. Very cold. His skin started shivering, and the sharpshooter sat up. He was missing his clothes, excepting his trousers, apparently left on for modesty's sake. His arms, he noticed once again, were pulled tightly behind his back, secured by what had to be manacles. He tried moving his wrists, but they refused to budge, as if the metal was one solid piece. There was a similar pressure on his ankles, and Irvine looked down, to see solid cuffs binding his feet.
Irvine turned his gaze around the room, and stopped as he spotted the other occupant of the chamber, laying facedown on the floor.
"Selphie!" he called, and tried to rise up to his feet, before remembering what was clamped around his ankles. He fell over gracelessly, hitting the frigid floor again.
Selphie groaned something, and started to roll over. For whatever reason, their captors had left her clothes on, excepting her boots and minor accessories. She was bound similarly to Irvine.
The tiny SeeD began to roll over, and caught sight of Irvine as he sat back up.
"Irvine," she muttered, shaking her head as she tried to sit up as well. "Where are we?"
Yeah, where are we? Irvine mused, and his memories of the battle with the freakish Estharian soldiers came rushing back like a tidal wave, including the final words.
"Iceblood Prison," he muttered, and Selphie's eyes widened.
"Iceblood?" she echoed. "That's just a story, isn't it?"
"Adel's secret prison," Irvine replied, shaking his head. "Before I passed out, they mentioned taking us there. Either we're in Iceblood now, or on the way."
Their conversation was silenced by the hissing of hydraulics. Part of the formless white room opened up, revealing a black corridor beyond, and through which stepped a small group of men. Four of them were in red and blue variants of the Estharian military uniform, bearing the colors of Esthar's military police. Between the two military police was a tall, skinny man in black Estharian robes, hands clasped behind his back as he entered the chamber. His black hair was closely cut, and a pair of polished boots encased his feet, also of a glossy black material.
"They're awake!" he mused in a slightly high-pitched tone, his lips split by a strange grin as he looked over the two SeeDs. "Oh, my, what perfect timing. Certainly they weren't unconscious for very long . . . ."
The skinny man paused, and let out a short chuckle.
"Ah, but pardon me, I forgot to introduce myself." He patted himself on the chest. "I left my real name behind a long time ago when I had to hide away from Adel's usurpers. Now, I am known simply as 'The Warden.'" He paused, and as Irvine started to open his mouth, the man raised a finger. "Of what, you may be wondering? Why, none other than the famed and legendary Iceblood Prison complex."
"Yeah, we guessed that much already," Selphie responded, and the Warden nodded.
"My men let out some little secrets from time to time, don't they?" he mused. "But regardless, you are here, now, within my prison. Consider this to be your . . . Orientation." The Warden gestured at the two SeeDs, and the military police moved over and roughly hauled them to their feet.
"What's first? Coffee and breakfast?" Irvine muttered, and the soldier slugged him across the face in response.
"I do so love idle commentary," The Warden stated with a quiet giggle. "Iceblood Prison was first built by Adel Harbringer to contain political dissidents and other enemies. After she was thrown from her place of power, it became the place where her agents and those still loyal to her placed their enemies and rivals. Of course, it's been a while since we've had fresh prisoners, though we did have a recent upstart in here a couple of months ago. He's been very uncooperative in letting us carry out the execution order on him. But I digress."
The Warden waved his hands to encompass the room.
"Iceblood Prison is buried beneath the frozen plains of Trabia. It is surrounded by miles and miles of uninhabited frozen winter lands. The only things out there are trees, hungry monsters, and patrols belonging to my forces and Veronica Anderson's robed minions. I assume you've already met them before becoming our guests."
"Crazy Sorceress bitch with a purple and green fetish?" Irvine asked.
"Yep, that's her," Selphie answered, and the Warden chuckled.
"From what I hear, you caused her a lot of grief, killing so many of her valuable minions," the Warden continued. "But then again, what we have gained as a result is certainly worth the losses. The actual first working Elemental has been recovered! The Prototype!And two SeeDs, loaded with information regarding Garden. Yes, quite the prizes!"
"You're not getting anything out of us," Irvine snarled, and the Warden's giggle filled the chamber. He stepped forward, eyeing the sharpshooter with a strange gaze, and then snapped a hand across, slapping the SeeD viciously, before spinning away.
"There are three main segments of this prison complex," the Warden continued. "The labs, Lockdown, and the Undercity. Lockdown is where all our important guests go, and spend the first few years of their stay, at least until we're finished breaking them down into quivering balls of humanity. Then, they are dumped in the Undercity, where general population is kept. Those who don't matter go straight down into the Undercity. Once you're down there, we don't care what happens to you." He turned and pointed at Irvine.
"You, my precocious Galbadian friend, are going straight to lockdown. You'll tell us everything you know about Garden, right down to the size of Commander Leonhart's boxers."
"You'd think I'd know that?" Irvine muttered, and the Warden giggled again, and smacked the sharpshooter, for no apparent reason.
"Doesn't hurt to check," he responded offhandedly. "Once we're finished with you, you'll be dumped in the Undercity. I expect you'll stand . . . maybe three days interrogation before we break you. But you," the Warden turned toward Selphie, smile growing.
"Zat iz ze one!" came a voice from the entrance, and the SeeDs, along with the Warden, turned to see a short man with black hair pulled tightly back behind his ears waddle into the room, ahead of a taller figure who stayed back in the darkness. He wore simple white and gray robes, and none of the eccentric clown-like clothes that were the norm for him, but his face and voice were unmistakable.
"Odine!" Irvine snarled, and the short Estharian scientist paused, glancing at Irvine, before looking back at Selphie and nodding.
"Ja, zat girl iz ze one we need," he continued. "Zhe has had long-term expozure to ze Guardian Forcez. Zhe will do perfectly for ze experiment we've been vanting."
"Experiment?" Selphie echoed. "What are you talking about?"
"Guardian Forcez alter ze body of a human being," Odine answered. "Ve need to know how ze procezzez verk in order to perfect ze-"
"Odine, quiet your babbling, you fool!" the Warden snapped, and the short doctor quieted, turning toward the skinny man and pouting. "There'll be time for your exciting research when we get to speak with the Director again. He'll be most interested in how the experiment will effect the girl's body."
"Hey!" Irvine snapped. "You're not doing anything to Selphie unless-"
The Warden slugged Irvine hard across the face, and the military police let him drop to the cold floor.
"What are you going to do?" the Warden demanded. "You're a SeeD with no Guardian Forces, or guns! You're nothing without your weapons, just a long-haired prettyboy. You're worthless beyond what information you hold."
"Take off these cuffs and let me show you just how worthless I really am," Irvine replied, and the Warden sneered, before kicking Irvine viciously in the stomach. He doubled over, groaning in pain, and heard Selphie cry out his name.
"Abusing the prisoners again?" came another voice from the entrance to the chamber, and the Warden glanced over his shoulder. The man who had been standing in the corridor walked into the room, arms folded over his chest. Irvine couldn't see him, until the Warden walked out of his way to address the figure.
"Doctor Nash," he stated, suddenly more respectful than he'd been to Odine, or anyone else. Somehow, though, despite the respect, there was still that air of amusement and sadism that Irvine had sensed buried within the Warden, as if he was simply covering it up.
"They haven't even been introduced to their cells," muttered the man named Nash, as he looked over the pair of prisoners. Irvine's eyes widened as he made out the figure.
Nash was large, but not huge, and apparently well-built beneath the open white lab coat he wore. Black slacks and a brown shirt were beneath the coat, the shirt pulled tight over a toned, muscled frame underneath. Brown hair hung loosely around his head, gathered up over a black bandana he wore and dropping over the band, and gathered into a thick braid that apparently ran down the man's back. However, the thing that struck Irvine was his slender face, a very familiar-looking one. It was aged and weathered, with a toughness that came with age and hard living, and his jaw was more square, but there was no mistaking his features, or the blue eyes.
Squall.
Nash looked like Squall would have if he was in his late thirties.
"Doctor, they have just arrived, and this fool," the Warden whirled and kicked Irvine in the gut again, "needs to be taught that I am in charge of this installation. Here, I am the law!"
"I understand that," Nash replied. "But that doesn't mean we need to be so rude at our introduction." He paused, and glanced at Selphie. "That's her? The one who uses Guardian Forces?"
"Ja!" Odine answered excitedly. "Ze girl vill be zufficient, though I vould prefer ze Governor. He haz had more experience uzing GFz zen I believe ze girl haz. Zhe vill do for ze initial teztz."
"Then we should get to work," Nash responded quietly. He snapped his fingers, and the two men holding Selphie up started dragging her toward the exit.
"No!" she protested, and started fighting her captors, shaking violently. "Let m ego!"
"Selphie!" Irvine shouted, sitting up, new fear filling him. He had barely begun to move before the Warden turned and, with a sadistic smile, kicked him hard in the head. Irvine's skull snapped back, and he fell to the floor hard.
"Stun batons," ordered the Warden. "Low setting. Make it take a few hits before he passes out."
The two military police nodded and drew short cylindrical sticks, and touched panels on them, before turning to Irvine. The sharpshooter began to sit up, and they pummeled him with the sticks, sending powerful electrical shocks through his body. Irvine's muscles seemed to explode all at once, and his body spasmed uncontrollably. His attackers waited until he lost control of his body and fell to the floor, before hitting him again.
Irvine's vision then began to blank out. As he did so, one of the soldier barked a laugh.
"Two hits, on the lowest setting? What a wimp!"
-writhing, screaming, she was calling out to him, reaching out, shouting his name-
A glimpse of something. A black wing, feathers, tears and laughter, both joyful and dark, red eyes, and fire. Flames and destruction.
He felt it. Pain, anguish, anger, rage, suffering, torment . . . She wanted escape, she wanted freedom. The thing inside kept pulling on her, demanding release, but she couldn't control it or sate it, so it pressed against her, demanding violence and bloodshed-
Fear.
In a jolt, he sat up, clutching his head, panting in the darkness. He quickly looked around, the painful thoughts flooding through his mind as the dream flashed across his memory like a searing hot blade. His chest was heaving from the intense, frightening emotions and images within the dream . . . .
Was it a dream? Dream or nightmare, he couldn't place it, but he had never felt such poignant emotions and perceptions within a dream before. Not even after the incident on the Pandora.
Slowly, he turned and rolled out of his bed, or at least the thing he used as one. Thick fur was spread across the floor, and a thinner carpet of fur served as his blanket, which was about all the accommodations he had in the prison. Still, in the icy underground of the Undercity, there were few things better than a warm place to sleep. Now, however, the furs were filled with his sweat, and his body was burning from the intense dream.
He stood up in the middle of his chamber, and glanced at the dying coal embers in the fire pit, and walked across the room, to where his scabbard and coat were hanging on a small spike jutting out from the wall. He eyed them for a moment, and shook his head as he looked over the bloody cross still visible on one of the sleeves.
"Stupid," he muttered to himself, shaking his head. That symbol was nothing but a blight, a sign of what his pride had done to him. That coat was his reminder of what he had done with his life, and the stains and blood on it were little more than indicators of how badly his life had been ruined by his ambitions. Now it hung on the wall of a prison. A suitable place for one such as he.
The man referred to as the Governor walked across the room and sat down at the cloven stalagmite he used as a stool, and thought, his cybernetic right hand curling up into a fist which he rested his chin on.
He did a lot of thinking. Thinking was most of what he had time for, especially now, at these late hours, when everyone else was asleep. Sure, he had to lead the other prisoners, and under his direction, they were strong enough to resist the guards who came down into the Undercity, but even so, the Governor often found nothing else to do but to think to himself. And he thought a lot when he did think, and most of those thoughts were of a dark nature.
He was a failure. He knew that in his heart, and he hated himself for it. His entire life had been proceeding from one failure to another. Never had he been able to succeed, even with all of his advantages and skills. Even at birth, he had been nothing; his mother was a impoverished teenage prostitute, and his father was a Dollet soldier who had disappeared in the Sorceress War. He had failed to succeed at his goal to become a SeeD, despite his prodigal talents with the gunblade. And he'd failed to become the knight of a Sorceress, instead turned into her puppet and lapdog, used as a means to wage war against people who had never deserved it.
How much blood is on my hands? Can I ever wash it clean? Can I ever be forgiven? And more importantly . . . Do I deserve forgiveness?
For his crimes . . . Treason, murder, aiding an insane Sorceress, and more personal crimes against those he cared for . . . Now, he didn't deserve forgiveness. This prison was his atonement, and he would stay here, and make the lives of the Undercity's prisoners better, until he died, or fate decided that he had atoned.
"Heh. Listen to me," he muttered, shaking his head. "I'm thinking like some angsty antihero with the dark secret. All I need is a black trenchcoat and long silver hair."
He stood up, and paced around the room, deliberately changing his line of thought. He reflected back on the dream that had awoken him, and shook his head. There were no real images, just emotions and thoughts, jumbled together. He closed his eyes as he reflected on them, and tried to remember the details. There was anguish, for certain, and fear, and what seemed like a separate presence, a dark force that wanted escape and freedom.
He couldn't precisely place what it was, but as the Governor went over the dream, he caught a brief glimpse of something deep within the folds of emotion and turmoil. He paused, trying to remember the image within the dream, and then opened his eyes as he realized what it was he had seen.
Two wings, one black and demonic, leathery and reaching out, and a second wing with white, downy feathers. And both wings stretching from a tiny, crying child's back as it lay, confused and uncertain.
"What the hell?" he muttered, shaking his head. "Need to watch what I eat. Gives me all kinds of funky dreams."
The Governor shook his head, and moved back toward his bed, not entirely certain what the dream had meant, or if it had even meant anything. He lay down on the bed, and stared up at the ceiling, and attempted to return to sleep.
"So, the experiment is underway?"
"Yes, sir. They should have begun the treatment process right now, and they expect results within the hour."
"Good. Director Varines will want to know anything he can about how the injections interact with someone who is already properly attuned to Guardian Forces. It may be the best bet we have to increase the yield . . . ."
"Sir, I think the prisoner is waking up."
"Ooh!" the Warden squealed, and as Irvine started to ascend out of the blank darkness he'd been swimming in moments before, the first image he saw was the skinny man's face right in front of his own, that freakish grin splitting his cheeks.
"Wakey-wakey!" he said. "Oh, I'm glad to see you're finally up! You have a good nap?"
Irvine was hanging from his wrists by some kind of manacles, and was strapped to a cold metal wall. He ignored the Warden and glanced around the room, which appeared to be a simple utilitarian metal chamber. A lone light bulb was hanging from the ceiling, and a pair of military police stood by a large holographic panel covered with symbols, switches, and a detailed scan of Irvine's body and layout of his vital signs.
"I'd like to complain about the service," Irvine muttered. "I specifically requested no torture chambers."
The Warden giggled again, and nodded, stepping away.
"Also, the accommodations are really bad. A single light bulb? How many times have we seen this before? Really clichéd."
The Warden shrugged, and reached up, flicking the light with a finger, sending it spiraling on its cord and casting shadows all around the small room.
"Atmosphere," he answered simply, with a shrug. "I can't have my torture chambers outfitted with disco balls and pink wallpaper, can I?"
"It'd be an improvement,' Irvine replied, and the insane Warden laughed again, thumbing his chin as he did so.
"I'll consider it," he added, and then nodded to himself. "And just to show you my appreciation for the suggestion . . . ." The Warden snapped his fingers, and one of the Mps touched a light on the panel. Instantly Irvine's entire body exploded with pain, agony playing up and down his spinal cord. He gritted his teeth as a clawing, searing wave of suffering rippled down his arms and across his chest, before suddenly vanishing as the soldier hit the light again.
Irvine slumped in his restraints, eyes wide from the shock of the torture. He had known what these things were capable of, but never having been put through one before . . . .
"How did you like it?" the Warden asked. "I built it myself. It uses a specially modulating beam projected form that wall behind you to stimulate the pain receptors across your body. I can create any kind of pain I wish, in whatever pattern I wish."
"I'll be sure to let you take a whirl on it when I get out," Irvine answered, and the Warden's giggle sounded again.
"How audacious! I like my prisoners that way! Makes it more fun breaking them." He paused, thumbing his chin as he regarded Irvine for a moment. "Don't get your hopes up, however. No one has ever escaped from my prison in the last twenty years. You certainly won't be the first. Resume!"
Irvine's body instantly spasmed as pain ripped through his back, and then moved forward, across his chest. His heart screamed for an instant, and then his lungs burned, before the wave of agony dropped lower, diving into his stomach, and then tracing up along his back. A rapid-fire assault of pain ran up his spinal column, as if someone was playing his nerves like a keyboard. The sharpshooter gritted his teeth, and for the first few moments managed to keep from crying out. However, the agony finally overwhelmed his will, and his mouth opened, releasing a roaring cry of pain as the beam cut up into his neck.
The pain cut off a moment later, and Irvine slumped once more, his body already slackened and exhausted by the tormenting machine.
"I commend you for your willpower, SeeD," the Warden commented. "But I really must insist that your actions are entirely futile. Here at Iceblood, we have all the time in the world to break you. You can try to hold out, but it is simply an exercise in futility."
Irvine looked up at the Warden, and managed a slight laugh.
"Doesn't hurt to try," he muttered, and the Warden nodded.
"If you feel the need to resist, then I would have no problem feeding your desire to eat pain. Continue!"
They had dragged her through a series of hallways, and into a lab, followed by an operation bay. Selphie had not made it easy on them, and despite her restraints, she had managed to stomp one man's foot rather painfully, and bit another where his neck met his shoulder, where the armor was little more than cloth, eliciting a painful howl. Nonetheless, the two soldiers had managed to get here into the operations room.
There, the men dragging Selphie had used some device to inject a drug directly into her skin, and within moments, Selphie's muscles had slackened as the drug sent a peaceful wave of calm over her. Once she had stopped resisting, the soldiers had strapped her to an operating table, and several lab technicians, as well as the two doctors, Nash and Odine, had entered.
Now, she lay on the bed as the technicians and the pair of doctors ran a series of tests, monitoring a number of biomonitors they were hooking up to her body, and observing readouts on her biology.
"It iz like I zaid," Odine stated. "Ze girl haz a thirty-eight percent adaptation to Guardian Force junctionz."
"Higher than we anticipated for a Trabian SeeD," remarked Nash, almost to himself. "But not as much as a full Balamb SeeD. She must have been using GFs lightly before she went to Balamb Garden. Still, its more than enough."
"Vich vun?" Odine asked as he looked over a tray of a half-dozen vials, set on a mobile hovering cart.
"Which one is she most adapted to?" Nash asked in response, looking over the readouts. "Hm. Ice element, it seems."
"Ja!" Odine cried. "Ve vill uze Zhiva!" He lifted up one of the vials, and turned to Nash. "Injection or IV line?"
"I would rather test it under possible battlefield circumstances," Nash responded as he crossed the room, moving toward Selphie. She watched him, a small bit of fear working its way into her, but partially suppressed by the drugs she had been given. Selphie was more interested in his facial features.
She had seen him in the orientation room, but now that Nash was closer, Selphie could make out his features even more clearly, and she was more and more convinced as she watched him: the brown hair, slender face, and blue eyes were very similar to Squall's. She had no idea of the significance of that similarity, however, and she couldn't even open her mouth to say anything. She could barely summon the energy and control to move her eyes around and watch the lab technicians go about their work.
"Zen injection?" Odine asked, and Nash nodded.
"Soldiers won't be able to use IV lines in combat," Nash answered, and Odine snorted.
"How many men vill uze zees in combat?" he demanded. "Bah. Vatever. Ve vill do it your vay."
Nash stood over Selphie, and met her green eyes with his own blue one. He seemed to read her expression, and then, after a few moments, shook his head.
"This may hurt at first," he advised her. "The pain will only be passing. I'm very sorry it has to be you."
Selphie did manage to open her mouth at that, but she couldn't say anything, and was only able to watch in fascination as Odine approached, with the glowing vial in hand, attached to a syringe. Nash took it from the short doctor, and glanced at Selphie again.
"Forgive me."
His word was barely a whisper, but she heard it clearly as he poked the needle into her arm and depressed the plunger. Her eyes widened instantly as an icy chill and biting pain shot through her arm, and quickly moved through her body, advancing up into her neck, and then down into her heart and lungs. If she could have writhed or screamed, Selphie would have, but she was unable to move or express her pain beyond her widened eyes.
The icy agony spread through her for several seconds, and then began to fade away, replaced only by a bitter chill, and a new, unnerving presence within her, an awareness she had touched many times before, but only as a distant voice in her mind. Now, however, it whispered closely in her ear, and she felt its age and wisdom filling her every being.
Shiva?
As she thought that, Nash nodded, and looked away. Her eyes began to droop slowly as a darkness swam up into her consciousness.
"Let her rest after this. Its going to be different for her when she awakes. I need to go see our other guest."
"Ze Prototype?" Odine asked, and Nash nodded as unconsciousness took Selphie.
"Yes. I need to make sure Serra's alright . . . ."
Then Selphie knew no more.
Irvine slowly sat up, shaking his head as he did so. His body screamed in pain as he moved, but the agony helped him regain his consciousness. He scented ozone in the air . . . his skin was still smoking after the torture. His body was lathered in sweat as well. That Warden bastard must have kept hammering him even after he passed out thirty minutes into the interrogation . . . .
He reached up and wiped some of the stinging liquid off his eyes, his arm aching with the exertion. Irvine glanced around the cell, which was a simple, barren eight foot by eight foot steel gray room. There was nothing in the chamber excepting a single depression in one corner, which led to a drain pipe. It was pretty obvious what purpose that served. At one corner of the room, high up at the ceiling, was what looked like a camera of some kind. Great; they were watching him even in his cell.
He continued his survey of the blank room, and stopped when he saw the door directly in front of him. The solid steel, hinged doorway was opened slightly, and pasted up on the inside of the door was a note. Slowly, his body aching with each movement, Irvine rose and crossed the room, looking at the paper, and the writing scribbled over it.
If you're reading this, then I estimated the dosage properly. It should be roughly the middle of the night, and all the other prisoners have been drugged and are unconscious. I slipped you a lower dosage, so you should be awake. I did some bypassing of the cameras, and the holocam in your cell should be showing your unconscious body. The guards are all asleep for the most part, except a few guarding the desk down the hall from your cell. Avid them, they can wake up the whole complex in an instant if they need to. There's a ventilation shaft two doors down to the right when you exit your cell. Get inside, and move down past five intersections. At the sixth, turn to the right, and then to the left. You should end up over an open grating in the labs. I'll be waiting.
Oh, and there are some painkillers taped to the back of this note. They should ease the aches. Good luck.
"Huh," Irvine muttered, and glanced at the heavy steel door.
I have a friend on the inside? Or is the Warden playing with my head? Wouldn't put it past that lunatic . . . .
Irvine shrugged after a moment. If someone was trying to help him escape, he couldn't waste the opportunity. And if the Warden was playing with him, he would make sure it was the last game he ever played.
The sharpshooter pulled the note off the wall and flipped it over, revealing a pair of small pills. He quickly took them, swallowing them whole, and within seconds the pain running through his body started to ebb. With that taken care of, Irvine slowly opened the door, peeking out into the hallway beyond. It was dark and empty, but the floor was lined with small lights casting a soft glow along the hall, which let Irvine see the lines of doors on either side of the passage. He counted at least thirty doors visible along this hallway in the dim light. Slowly, the sharpshooter crept out of his cell, and closed the door behind him, which locked with a quiet mechanical click.
He quietly stole down the hallway, alert to any sounds, but could hear nothing beyond the distant hum of machinery. He quickly counted off the prison doors as he passed them, not wanting to think about the people behind them; he didn't have time to worry about the other prisoners anyway. As he passed the second door, he spotted what had to be a ventilation shaft, a standard industrial grating covering it. Unsurprisingly, Irvine found the covering loose and easy to pry open; clearly his "friend" had arranged this.
Irvine climbed up into the shaft, which was spacious enough that he could turn around and fit the grating back over the shaft. It wouldn't do for a passing guard to spot it, after all. Once it was fitted into place, he turned himself back around and crawled down the passage.
What the hell? Irvine thought to himself as he crawled along. I haven't even been here a single day and I've already started an escape? If this is a joke by that bastard, I'm gonna rip him a new one.
He counted down the intersections as he moved quickly, crawling as fast as he could down the dark ventilation shaft. Irvine felt weird moving through the shaft, like he was in a surreal environment. Sure, he'd seen this kind of thing in the spy movies, but the idea that he was actually crawling around some ventilation shaft like a super-spy was kind of ridiculous. Didn't people shield their shafts from this kind of intrusion? Surely the Warden would put some security measures in place if he wanted to keep his prison secure.
Then again, that guy is bat-shit crazy, no question there. He doesn't play by sane peoples' rules.
He reached the sixth intersection and turned to his right, and crawled down it for a moment, before coming across another shaft turning to his left. He crawled down that shaft, and less than a minute later, Irvine was parked over a grating overlooking a darkened room, which appeared to be a biology lab of some kind. A quick tap on the grating showed it was loose, and he pried the cover off, before dropping down into the room silently. He ducked into a low crouch, scanning the room intently, and found nothing within beyond tables laden with test tubes, monitors, and microscopes, as well as other lab equipment.
Irvine stopped in his survey of the room as his eyes passed over a wall, consisting of several shelves behind a glowing force shield. Set on the shelves were several long vials of faintly glowing fluid. He moved across the room, curious, and his eyes ran over the tubes, reading the markings on them. He was shocked as he read each one, for every tube bore the name of a Guardian Force.
"Queztocotl, Ifrit, Shiva," he muttered, looking over them. "Leviathan. Bahamut. Minotaur. Sacred. Alexander . . . ." Irvine scrunched up his brows as he saw ones he wasn't familiar with. "Eden. Titan. Golem. Seraphim. Tiamat. Astaroth. Faust . . . ."
Irvine froze as he saw the last one, and a thousand echoes of pain shot through his body as he remembered the slivers of metal Ultimecia had shot through him in the final battle. He hadn't lived long enough to see it, but Squall had described the monstrosity that had slain Quistis, Zell, and Rinoa.
"Griever."
Irvine stared at that vial for a moment, not sure what it signified, but feeling a knot of dread in his stomach. What was going on in these labs?
He turned around, scanning the room again, and spotted a pair of doors. One had a window, and apparently led back out into the hall outside. The second one, however, appeared to be locked. Irvine moved over to it, and nodded as he read the words imprinted on the portal: "Operations Room."
Irvine quickly looked around the room, and into the drawers of the desks and tables. He quickly found a scalpel in one of the drawers, and thrust it into the old-style key lock on the doorknob. Security around this place was a lot weaker than the Warden had made it out to be, and the lock was easy enough to pick with the slender scalpel. Within less than a minute, the SeeD had opened the door, and stepped into the room beyond.
He hesitated as he crossed the doorjamb. It was cool in here, cooler than it was in the other room. There was a dead silence in the darkened room, but something wasn't right. It was large, that much he could see, and judging by what he could tell, it looked like both an operating room and a recovery chamber in one. He could hear only two apparent sounds: the regular inhale and exhale of someone sleeping, and the faint whirring of the motors of a camera. Irvine looked up, and nodded as he spotted a camera directly over the door. If it was set up without any lighting, that meant it was likely using an infrared beam to see in the darkness.
Judging by the way the tiny light on the camera moved, it was sweeping across the center of the chamber, and the doorway. Irvine reached up and quickly located the wiring for the machine. A simple cut with his scalpel disabled the infrared cam.
Privacy assured, Irvine looked back across the room. As he did so, he spotted what he guessed was some kind of lighting control on the wall near where he'd entered. Moving back across the room, the sharpshooter activated one of several switches, creating a dim glow. He made sure the door was closed, and left the other lights off, not wanting to draw attention, and looked back over the room.
His initial guess had been right: it was a combination of operating chamber and recovery room. Two operating bays could be seen, and beside them were a pair of separate rooms, all divided by partitions, much like the separate chambers in the infirmary at Garden. He could h ear the faint breathing of a sleeping person in one of the recovery rooms, and moved in the direction of the noise, cursing his feet as they slapped on the bare, cool tile floor. He glanced into the recovery room, and saw-
"Selphie!" Irvine gasped, and he stepped into the small room. Selphie lay on a bed, swathed in a blanket and strapped down securely. Biomonitors were connected to her wrists and temples, feeding into machinery which showed streams of incomprehensible gibberish and numbers. She was silent and deep asleep, judging by her breathing.
Irvine grasped her hand and put his other to her shoulder, shaking her. It took the sharpshooter a moment to feel her skin, which was surprisingly cold, as if she had been out in the Trabian plains for several hours.
"Selphie, wake up!" he hissed, but she didn't respond, except to continued breathing deeply. Irvine tried to rouse her a few more times, and then shook his head.
"No idea what they did to you," he hissed as he grabbed the straps, looking for a way to remove them. "But I'm not leaving you here, got me?"
He started fiddling with the medical straps, which were more complex than they initially looked, and then stopped as he heard a voice outside.
"Light's on in the operating room," remarked a familiar voice, and Irvine narrowed his eyes.
Nash.
It was that damn doctor. The sharpshooter looked around the room, and spotted the camera. Maybe disabling it had set off a flag in their system? He'd have to be more careful. Quickly looking around the room, Irvine spotted another ventilation shaft, and quickly moved over to it. It was screwed in, but his pilfered scalpel worked well as a screwdriver. He quickly removed the two screws and started to pry the vent cover off.
The doorknob rattled as Nash started to open it. Irvine glanced back quickly as he removed the cover, and saw the door open. He leapt up, scrambling inside, but knew Nash would see him.
The doctor, however, looked at the other end of the room, away from Irvine, toward the operating bays and then at the light switch.
"Who left this on?" he mused, as Irvine managed to pull himself the rest of the way into the vent and out of sight. He twisted around and quickly refitted the cover into place as Nash crossed the room, moving toward Selphie's unconscious form. He paused over her, touched her arm, and nodded.
"Still adapting," he muttered to himself. "But she's moving far faster than any other subject. It must be the Guardian Force adaptation. If she's adapting this quickly . . . a SeeD highly experienced with GFs could adapt within minutes."
Nash glanced at the biomonitors, and then back at Selphie, and shook his head.
"I'm sorry they did this to you," he whispered. "So much has to be sacrificed to win this war . . . Rest now. Hopefully you won't be here long." With that, he moved back across the room, cut off the light, and disappeared.
Irvine waited in the vent shaft, watching Selphie's still form, and considered his next move. He couldn't get her out as he was; not with the equipment he had. He needed to be rational about this, but he also needed to move fast; it wouldn't take long for the Warden to discover he had escaped, and he still needed to find his mystery contact.
A half-naked, unjunctioned SeeD with no weapons except a surgical scalpel, trapped inside an ultra-secure prison complex in the middle of Trabia, and I need to escape with Selphie, who's completely unconscious, and I need to get out before they discover I've escaped my cell.
Irvine snorted. Piece of cake.
-
Hoo bay. this isn't good. At least Irvine's escaped, but can he get Selphie out of Iceblood? And what of the Governor? What role will he play?
The bloody stabbing kind, duh.:P
Shout-Out Time!
OniRazz: Gratz on graduation. Crell is more or less a bunch of megalomaniacal villians I've seen or read thrown together. Takke some mad insane dictator, make him look like Squall, and you've got Crell.
Ironically, on the one chapter you grill me on, its the one chapter I actually proofread :P
DBZ Fanfiction Queen: Heh. I'm evil aren't i?
Flat feet is a condition where you have little or no arch in your feet. No arch means that your leg gets minimal support when you run, so when you do run, your leg is taking a lot of stress from the constant impacts with the ground. That results in stress fractures in your leg, which in turn is very painful. Eventually, yourshin snaps in half. Not pleasant. Also not good if you want to join the Marines.
That was my big shocker moment: "Squall, Rinoa is the traitor." "I see." POW! "No, bitch. YOU'RE the traitor!" XD
When Illarra mentioned sacrifice, its more of a figurative thing, like a family curse. Not necessarily genetic, but its something along the lines of bad luck during childbirth, so to speak.
Platonic1: When considering Squall's line, you have to keep in mind, he's three years later, and signifigantly more emotional, not to mention he's Gunblade Saga squall, so is a bit more loose. Not to mention he's pissed off at Crell for what he's done to him, and is excellent at inspiring his people, and thus knows what to say to get his people to fight.
As for Irvine and Selphie, give 'em a break. Its only been a day, and during that day they had to deal with rampant terrorism, and today, they've got a war on their hands. And as for Illarra, well, Martine was helping her escape. When a big head of a Garden is helping you escape, you tend to get away :P
Chris Ganale: I'm trying to come up with soemthing that isn't a Halo or Star Wars rip-off :P And damn straight, business is about to pick up!
Solid Shark: You ever leave a review without "interesting" somewhere in it:P And the SeeDs are getting a workout, trust me.
Leonhartilly: Well, there was plenty of Selphie and Irvine here! And a little bit of the Governor too!
Eclipse Brooke: Wow, thanks! I like it when people tell me they're inspired by my work! Inflates my ego majorly.
Lionheart614: About Alucard... I say nothing! Irvien and Selphie will likely link back up with Garden. Hopefully. Possibly. Its in the realm of potentially occurring.
JadeAlmasy: I'm dyslexic. Sometimes I hit the spacebar too quickly or lightly,andmywordsruntogether. :P
Yes, I loved writing Squall kicking Martine's ass! it was satisfying, because I'd known he was the traitor for a while,a nd wanted him to get his.
Xephon: Bingo. You don't know Squall. :P
Tain Shari: Hey! Stop giving me ideas when they may be better than mine:P
Yeah, the baby's death does have relation to the Chimera genes. Precisely what, heh heh heh...I'm not telling!
That little girl...there's a majorly big secret there. Though there are allowed to be mor ethan one Sorceress at once (e.g. Edea and Adel, for example) Veronica is an all-natural Sorceress, who wasn't created or anything. I'll also say that you are edging slightly along the right path, but only very slightly. Serra does have something to do with the Elemental Project, but what, I'm not saying. And you hit it on the nose when you were guessing where the research was taking place!
The Chimera...there's a big secret there too. I'll say this much: The Chimera was human before. Now...well, your guess is as good as anyone else's. Heh. But you're right as to why Odine is involved: he knows a tremendous amount about GFs and Sorceresses.
You're hititng somethings corretcly, but others are way off. Still, I like hearing speculation. A lot is going to be revealed in Iceblood, I assure you. Like, say, what the heck that Griever vial is all about...
Daniel Wesley Rydell: While Alucard isn't exactly behind everything, he is very important regarding the backstory, so to speak. He's had a hand in some pretty major events leading up to what happened in both Gunblade and Chimera.
There is one person who's related to someone else. Not in the manner that you're thinking, but they are related.I even threw out a tiny hint way back.
No idea. Where'd that come from:P
JJ Firebrand05: Yeah, it would make me die happy seeing this or any otherfanfic I writepublished.
Hey, if you have to use the enter key, blame the site, not me. Everything looks just fine on my word processor. :P
What? Hints? Come on, I'm giving out more hints than I know what to do with! I've released so many hints that I'm losing track of 'em:P At least, hints toward what really matters. And funny you speak of GFs, a few may be very, very prominent in the story.
Hee.bound and Unbound don't directly relate to the Chimera...or do they? Hm. What should I say here? You want me to say the Chimera is a GF?
No, he's not. Or at least, he wasn't. As for now...well, I'll reveal that when I get to it.
Is that all of my enraged,frustrated reviewers? Yep.Spiffy.
Until next chapter!