Chapter 2: Blades and Feathers

"Iaijutsu?" he asked, looking at his guest. There was a faint click as the man secured his sword, and looked up at his benefactor.

"Exactly," he replied.

"That's an odd fighting style," he replied. "And most of the time its done with katana. I've never heard of anyone focusing their energy and drawing the blade over the shoulder before."

"Well, there's a first time for everything," he responded, walking across the room toward his vehicle.

"Heh. Suppose so. Take good care of that sword; not very often you get one that can channel that type of power into the blade."

"It's a good weapon," his guest responded as he climbed onto the motorcycle. "A very good weapon. Your specs were spot on. It'll do its job perfectly."

"Killing gods?" he asked, and the guest chuckled.

"Among other things."

"Ah, Crell! It iz good to be zeeing you once more!" Crell Varines nodded absently to the small, bobbing form of Hans Odine as the doctor walked down the concrete hallway and opened one of the reinforced steel doors at the end. The insurgent commander followed the scientist into the room beyond, which was the central control hub of the labs stationed in the Centra Crater.

Crell sniffed the air. While there was no discernable smell, he felt as if he was in a dank and dirty place. Unlike the pristine labs and white corridors that had made up the interior of the Iceblood Prison complex, the Centra Crater labs were constructed of dull gray and brown concrete and steel. Exposed piping cut across the ceilings, and the floors were a flat featureless concrete gray. It was relatively clean, but Crell just felt like these labs were rougher and less tidy than the Iceblood complex had been. Maybe it was the harsher lighting from the white overhead bulbs and non-holographic computer consoles, but Crell just didn't like this place.

Still, he couldn't complain; Iceblood had been burned, blasted, overrun by rioting prisoners, and then had been thoroughly searched by SeeD investigators shortly after the debacle at Balamb Island. Of course, they had found nothing; Crell had the labs emptied hours after the battle outside Balamb had been finished, and all surviving personnel and equipment transported to Centra.

"How is the project coming along?" Crell asked as he shut the door behind him and Odine walked over to the main control console, beneath a ten-foot high computer screen projecting data from around the labs.

"Ze tests regarding ze Requiem are still ongoing," responded Odine. "Ze subject is alive, though ze body vas not in good condition, we have restored close to ninety percent of ze original capabilitiez."

"Seawater in the lungs for several weeks tends to do that," Crell muttered. "Can the Requiem be controlled?"

"It vill follow orders," Odine responded, tapping keys on his console. "Though I suzpect that it iz vecoming more hostile toward uz. Odine iz not zure why it vould be doing zat, though . . . ."

"We never finished perfecting it," Crell replied. "Nash was behind most of the Requiem's systems, and when he cut and ran to Garden's side we lost most of the knowledge regarding the inner workings of that armor."

"Bah. All ve need is ze Prototype," Odine responded. "Once ve have her, ve can reprogram ze armor based on ze adult's data and achieve full control."

"And we have to get it soon," muttered Crell. "I cannot afford to have that creature regain full memories before we reprogram the armor. I need it under my full control. If it even begins to understand what we're doing and remembers past loyalties . . . ."

"Ja, ja, ve all die, Odine knows!" the scientist responded. "Are you fetching ze Prototype anytime zoon?"

"Its already begun," Crell replied. "Just relax. We'll have our girl soon enough." Crell looked over the screens. "How is Project Infection progressing?"

"Very good, very, very good!" Odine replied. "Ze aerosol iz complete. We are in ze prozess of zynthezizing more of ze chemecalz az ve zpeak!"

"How soon until we have enough to strike a major population center?" Crell asked, and Odine shrugged.

"Two more dayz, and ve can hit any city on ze western continent. A week, and ve can infect half of Esthar."

"Excellent," Crell whispered. "Excellent news, Doctor."

All I need is the Prototype, and in a week, this war will be over. The world will be mine, as it always should have been.

Metal rang against metal in the salty air, filling the small training circle with the clash of weapons. The lithe girl in the middle of the arena hopped back a step as her opponent disengaged his weapon and shot ahead with a thrust. Her staff snapped across, catching the blade of the rifle's bayonet and spinning it around, slamming it to the hard rubber turf beneath their feet, even as her right leg snapped up at his head. He had already ducked back, however, and retreated, raising his weapon.

Serra pursued, black hair flying back as she shot ahead at her opponent, side stepping low and to the side, her staff flying forward in an arcing thrust that smacked the weapon along its barrel. The rifle flew out wide, and her weapon shot into the gap, almost striking his chest before his left hand rose up and parried the strike.

"Good!" her trainer responded, grinning, as she pulled her staff back. "Adaptive, improvising, aggressive. You've got the core of the style down." Serra nodded, taking a step back and lowering her staff. She let out a deep breath as the SeeD retracted the bayonet on his rifle. "Well, that's all for today. Keep practicing with that weapon, and work on that defensive stance. Can't be retreating all the time. I'll see you again on Wednesday."

Roughly a hundred feet away, seated on one of the benches scattered around the open air exterior of Galbadia Garden, Quistis watched Serra nod. Beyond the girl and her instructor, the skyline of Dollet could be seen against the red cliffs, the mid-morning sunlight cast across the dark, quaint structures of the city. One could see the city starting to stir, and even vehicles moving along the docks the Garden was stationed at, transporting troops and supplies back and forth between the city and the ship.

"How is her training coming?"

Quistis looked up from the training circle, to see the blonde form of General Randolph, head of the Dollet military, standing behind her. He was watching Serra as she bowed to the SeeD instructor, who replied with a bow of his own in the traditional Garden farewell to trainers and instructors.

"Very well," Quistis answered, turning toward the Dollet officer. The man nodded, and Quistis caught a bit of movement behind him, from a SeeD in the Balamb Garden uniform, standing discreetly off to the side, observing their surroundings. He was one of a half dozen SeeDs Seifer had hand-picked for Serra's security detail.

"I can definitely see some of Sq-" Quistis paused for a moment at the painful memory. "-her father in her. She's nearly mastered several forms of staff combat already, and is only getting better. I think she's advancing almost as fast as . . . as Squall did when he was training."

"I see," Randolph replied as the girl collapsed her staff into a short handle and started walking toward the pair.

"Was there something you needed?" Quistis asked after a second, and the General looked away from Serra and nodded.

"Yes, I do, actually," he replied. "Have your people finished analyzing the data recovered from that nightclub raid in Dollet last night?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Quistis replied, sighing. "It looks like Crell's terrorists hid most of the data very well. Steele himself had nearly no incriminating evidence on his laptop, just notes on small criminal contacts who look like they have no connection to New Way beyond working as grunts and couriers. The courier that was supposed to pick up this week's income and transport it elsewhere was nowhere to be found."

"I heard that your people had taken a technician alive," Randolph asked, and Quistis nodded.

"He was fairly low-level, but it looks like he had some knowledge of this 'ShadowNet' that they've been using," she replied. "He's being interrogated right now."

"I also heard another disturbing report," Randolph added as Serra drew closer. "Kinneas encountered someone while pursuing Steele."

"Yes, we're looking into that," Quistis replied. "We're comparing Irvine's reports with what we got from that captured survivor of the massacre outside Timber. So far, the reports have been consistent."

"The Chimera," Randolph stated quietly.

"We have no idea who this man calling himself the Chimera really is," Quistis added. "All we know is that he's hostile toward Crell's agents, but has so far not been cooperating with us."

"He's a vigilante," Randolph added. "We need to find out what his agenda is. Our troops were ready to hit that cell outside Timber, and then he kills one of the logistical heads of New Way right when we're about to capture him. He may think he's helping us, but he's just killing our efforts to gather intel on the enemy."

"More importantly, I want to know how he knew where these cells were located," Quistis added. "Either he's got an inside line on our operations, or he's got a leak within Crell's organization. Either one would be very important."

"If it's a leak within Garden and CITU, we've got to plug it," Randolph mused. "But if its an inside line within Crell's agency, maybe he's cracked this ShadowNet or has a leak of his own. We need to find that and exploit it."

Serra had finally finished crossing the training yard as Randolph was speaking, a smile on her face. Both Quistis and Randolph broke their conversation as she approached, gladly shifting away from such pressing matters.

"We you two watching me?" she asked, and Quistis nodded, a smile appearing on her face, while the General still seemed troubled.

"Your style is improving," Quistis replied, and Serra nodded.

"I . . . I didn't want to rely entirely on Phoenix or Diablos to protect me," she said, her smile fading slightly. "I mean, they kept me safe while I was in Trabia, but now, I think I need to rely on myself to defend myself. I still don't have total control over Diablos . . . ."

"But you have much more control over him now than you did a year ago," Quistis added, and Serra nodded, smiling again. "And you're as good with a staff as many SeeDs."

"I know," she replied, nodding. "I think it comes from my father." She paused as she spoke those words, and noticed Quistis' expression seem to darken for a moment. "I . . . wish I had known him better. I barely even saw him before he died. Rinoa keeps telling me so much about him . . . ."

"He was a good man," Quistis stated after a second. She let out a quiet sigh of her own, barely audible over the wind. She opened her mouth to speak again, to comment on how Serra was so markedly similar to her father, when there was a sudden flicker in the back of her mind, a sensation of distant pain and danger.

Then, behind the Galbadia Garden Commander, one of Serra's discreet bodyguard SeeDs fell to the dirt, blood fountaining from the back of his neck.

"Has he said anything useful?" Irvine asked as he walked down the featureless gray-white hallway within Galbadia City's local CITU office. Beside him, Rinoa shook her head as she went through a binder full of files.

"He keeps saying he's just a technician," she replied with a shrug. "But from what I heard in that alley, he's got extensive understanding of this ShadowNet that Crell's terrorists have been using."

"Okay," Irvine replied, scratching his chin, where a rough stubble had been growing over the last few days. He hadn't shaved in a while, and his brown hair was growing out longer than it should have been, forcing the sharpshooter to actually loop it in a thick braid. Clad in a simple black T-shirt and jeans, he looked nothing like the sharpshooter he'd been a year ago.

Rinoa, on the other hand, seemed almost exactly the same as she had before the battle at Centra. She'd cut her hair shorter, to about chin length, but otherwise seemed just as slender and lithe as always. It wasn't until one looked into her eyes that they saw where the real change had taken place. When Squall had died, something in her had as well . . . and the woman that was left seemed less vibrant and lifelike, and instead almost clinical and cold. She reminded Irvine of Squall in a way . . . back before he had warmed up to Rinoa.

"We've been trying to avoid using more forceful interrogation methods," Rinoa explained. "He has offered to cut us a deal. Immunity in exchange for information."

"What kind of information?" Irvine asked as they entered the main office area, where investigators and agents were seated in and around and number of desks, filing reports and going over information.

"He didn't give anything concrete," Rinoa stated as they moved through the room and into another hallway, down a corridor to the holding and interrogation rooms. "Mostly hints about the workings of the ShadowNet and possibly some other information." She stopped at a door marked "Interrogation Three" and opened it, stepping into a darkened antechamber where a SeeD and a Galbadian CITU agent were observing the captured technician, behind a one-way mirror in the next room. Rinoa set the file binder down and regarded the technician.

"Has he said anything new?" she asked, and both of the agents shook their heads. "Okay, fine. I'll talk with him."

"You need help?" Irvine asked, and Rinoa shook her head. She swiped a card key over the lock sealing the door, and walked into the room to speak with the captive. Irvine stared at the man with detached interest as he settled back in his chair, and felt a twinge of anger at the technician's slight smug expression as Rinoa tried to convince him to talk. He responded calmly regarding their deal and stated he wouldn't speak any more until he'd gotten a pardon from the heads of state of Esthar, Galbadia, and Dollet, and from the Headmaster of Garden.

The door to the antechamber opened again, and Irvine glanced over at the SeeD who entered, a grim expression on his normally jovial face. Irvine nodded to Zell, who nodded back, and then looked through the mirror.

"Bastard said anything?" Zell asked, and Irvine shook his head. "Damn. We think he knows more than he's letting on."

"Really?" Irvine asked, and Zell nodded.

"Technical just got back on several of the laptops we recovered from the nightclub. We pieced together a fragment of an e-mail that said that some of the guards didn't trust the technicians, as they supposedly know a lot more than they should."

"Interesting," Irvine muttered, and Zell nodded.

"Because they have access to the ShadowNet, they have a lot of additional information. Troop deployments, attack schedules, logistics, personnel, and more." Irvine nodded again, but then stopped, going stiff, and looked to Zell with widened eyes.

"Did you say personnel?" Irvine asked, and Zell shrugged.

"They might," he explained. "Looks like once you access the ShadowNet, you can know anything regarding Crell's ops. Including where he's moving troops and equipment."

"And people he could have kidnapped," Irvine muttered, and Zell glanced at his friend, and took a step backward in surprise. The sharpshooter's fists were clenched tightly, hands trembling as he grit his teeth together.

Then Irvine walked over to the door leading into the interrogation room and swiped his card over the reader. Zell opened his mouth to protest the intrusion, and Rinoa looked up, surprised to see Irvine barging in. The sharpshooter reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, drawing a picture of Selphie from within, and circled around the table.

"Irvine, what are you-" Rinoa began, but was cut off as Irvine thrust the picture intot he tech's face.

"Have you seen this girl?" Irvine shouted in the man's face. The tech recoiled for a second at the force in the SeeD's voice, and then looked at Selphie's picture. Irvine watched the man's eyes as they flicked over the photo, and he caught something in his gaze - recognition.

"Where is she?" Irvine snarled, and the tech looked up at the SeeD, and then . . . he smiled.

"I want immunity first," he said calmly. "I'll tell you everything you want to know, but not until I get my pardon."

"The fuck you will," Irvine growled, taking a step back and drawing his pistol. He leveled it at the technician's forehead and pulled back the hammer.

"Irvine!" Rinoa shouted. "Irivne, put the weapon down now!"

"Tell me where she is!" Irvine ordered, sighting the technician's smiling face. The man settled further back into his chair, his expression telling the SeeD that he knew Irivine wouldn't fire.

"Talk!" Irvine ordered, and then sun, using his left hand to lift up the table and hurl it against the far wall. The technician watched the furniture fly across the room with dispassionate eyes, and smiled again even as the sharpshooter strode forward, pressing his pistol to his temple.

"I'm giving you one. Last. Chance." Irvine hissed, circling around the technician.

"Kinneas!" Rinoa shouted, using his last name for emphasis. "I am ordering you to put that weapon down now!" Irvine, stepping around behind the technician, looked up at her for a moment, and caught something in her eyes . . . a subtle approval. The sharpshooter nodded, and smacked the back of the tech's head.

"This scum knows where Selphie is, and if he won't tell me where she's at, I'm going to cave in his skull and dig out the intel myself!"

If the technician possessed any fear or interest, he didn't show it, remaining firmly seated as Irvine came around beside the man. They met eyes again, and Irvine caught a nod from Rinoa out the corner of his eye.

He jabbed the pistol into the man's thigh and pulled the trigger.

The first bodyguard had barely hit the ground when the other three SeeDs scattered around the training field collapsed as well. As they fell, there were faint flickers of motion in the air, subtle distortions, like rising currents of heat or ripples in water, drifting through the air.

"Active camouflage!" Quistis warned, and spun to her left, where she sensed an attack coming. Her whip snapped out in her hands, and the blade of the chain whip rang against light metal. She caught a shift in the dirt beneath where the sound of the impact had come from, and flicked her wrist, causing the whip to shift angle slightly, and wrap around something invisible to her eyes. She tugged, hard, and something became visible, what looked like an extendable quarterstaff, much like Serra's own weapon.

Serra reacted instantly tot he warning, as did her Guardians. For an instant, there were black and white mists swirling about her body, and the leathery wing of Diablos and the multicolored feathered wing of Phoenix became visible on her shoulders. The staff she held extended outward, and the leathery wing made a motion, sending a pulse of shadow arcing around Serra's position. The darkness played over several figures as they moved through the air, dispersing their camouflage fields and revealing them.

They wore jet black versions of regular Estharian armor, and wielded quarterstaffs much like Serra's and the one Quistis had pulled out of the hands of another attacker. Their bug-like helmets featured blood red visors, which glowed against the matte black armor they wore as they rushed in, abandoning subtlety in the face of their unmasking. their movements were quick and almost unnatural . . . almost robotic.

Estharian cyborg commandos. And judging by the active camouflage . . . they were assassins.

And they were going straight for Serra.

General Randolph watched the attackers advance on Serra, and he reached for his sidearm, only to find he wasn't wearing it, having not expected cyborg commando assassins to almost literally pop out of thin air in the middle of Garden. However, even without a sidearm, he did carry a heavy combat knife that most people would more accurately call a short sword. He reached down to is boot, where the balde was starpped, and then felt a sudden presence behind him.

Acting on pure instinct, the General spun, right hand shooting up at the wavering presence behind him, and closed his hand around the front of the Estharian's mask. The cyborg, shocked by the speed of the Dollet General, was still off-guard when Randolph drove a shocking left uppercut into its solar plexus, stunning and doubling over the assassin. Randolph snatched out his knife and flipped it into an overhand grip, and then stabbed the blade down into the commando's helmet. The heavy blade punched straight through the metal, into the cyborg's head, and Randolph slammed his fist down on the handle, driving the blade deeper into the assassin's brain.

The commando slumped, and Randolph tore the blade out of the cyborg's head and spun on the foes surrounding Serra.

The girl found herself being encircled by six of the black-clad assassins, and even as she deflected the first strike aiming for her head, her Guardians responded to the assault. Phoenix went in one direction, Diablos the other, and white fire and night-black shadow erupted from her wings. an assassin to her left and to her right fell, one blasted into ash by the holy fire of the Guardian of Life, and the other having its life-force torn from it by the Guardian of Shadow. Her staff whirled before her, the metal ringing on the metal of her enemies, staves interlocking and clashing as she desperately gave ground and tried to fend off her foes.

One of the cyborgs stopped as it advanced, however, head arcing back as General Randolph fell upon it from behind, his huge knife stabbing up into the back of its neck and twisting upward, the blade cutting through cybernetic processors and organic brain matter, killing the assassin instantly. Randolph grabbed the assassin by the back of its armor and tore his blade free, lifting the cybernetic commando with both hands and hurling the limp body at another black-clad foe. They went down in a tumble of limbs and staves.

Serra, now with only two foes before her, suddenly went on the offensive. She stopped her retreat cold and bulled ahead, staff whipping before her to catch a strike from one assassin and turn it, forcing her foe's metal rod into the path of the other's and tangling them up for an instant. Her weapon shot into the gap, slamming one cyborg's head, and crashing into the second's stomach, causing it to double over. Her weapon crashed into the back of the cyborg's head, knocking it flat to the ground, and Diablos struck. The leathery wing swept forward, shadow wreathing it, and struck the standing cyborg, immolating it in black fire that burned away its spirit and sent it flopping tot he ground, twitching uncontrollably. Phoenix took advantage of the prone assassin, and fire burned through its torso, scorching the earth beneath it and ensuring it wouldn't rise again.

The single foe Quistis faced rushed at her, still not completely visible, and she sensed it drawing a second weapon, a sword of some kind. It closed in, and she looped her whip, snapping it ahead and back, arcing it around the cyborg's sword and catching the chain with her other hand as it came around. A simple twist of her inhumanly strong wrist took the weapon from the cyborg's hands, causing it to stumble forward, and she stepped ahead, planting a forward snap-kick to its forehead. The assassin fell backward, dazed, and took the curving blade of Quistis' whip dead center in its masked face. Only as it hit the ground did the active camouflage fade away.

The last assassin pushed the fallen corpse of its comrade off of itself, in time for Randolph, knife held in an overhand grip, fell upon it, driving it to the ground and stabbing viciously. After four rapid overhand jabs into its masked face, the assassin went still, and the blood-stained General rose, crimson dripping from his blade.

And just as suddenly as their attack had come, the assassins' assault was over.

Irvine wiped a couple of droplets of blood from his face as the technician screamed, looking down at his leg as blood fountained over his thigh. The sharpshooter calmly cocked back the hammer for his weapon and pointed it at the man's leg again.

"Tell me!" he snarled, and his left hand grabbed the man's face, twisting his expression to look into Irvine's eyes. "Tell me now!"

The man seemed to resist for a moment, but then Irvine stuck his pistol, the barrel still hot from firing, into the technician's bleeding wound, and his scream redoubled.

"Tell me now or I'll shoot out your other leg, and then your calves, and your biceps, and then I'll start blasting off every finger-"

"Centra!" he screamed, and Irvine pressed his pistol even deeper.

"Where?"

The technician rattled off a stream of coordinates, and Irvine nodded. With a callousness that would have shocked even the sharpshooter himself if he had been thinking, he pistol-whipped the technician, knocking him out of his chair and to the floor. He turned away from the whimpering terrorist, pistol dripping blood, and nodded to Rinoa, who looked at the mirror.

"You get all that?" she asked.

"Yes . . . yes ma'am," came the reply over the intercom.

"The Commander's going to be furious when she finds out what we've done," remarked Irvine, and Rinoa shrugged, honestly not caring. After seeing how much death that scum like that tech had wrought, no one present had any sympathy for them.

They stepped into the antechamber, as Zell was hanging up a wall-mounted phone.

"Called some medics to take care of him," remarked the brawler. "But if it were up to me I'd let him roll around in there a while longer. Arrogant son of a . . . ." He glanced to Irvine as the sharpshooter wiped off his bloody pistol. "So, we have any idea now where they've taken her?"

"Coordinates inside Centra," responded Irvine. "Not sure what we'll find there, but I'm not for sitting around here and waiting to find out."

The door into the antechamber opened again, and stepping through it came Seifer Almasy, who glanced into the interrogation room. His gaze lingered over the hurled table, the blood on the floor, the whimpering, wounded technician who clutched his leg, and he looked to the trio.

"How many bullets?" he asked, and Irvine held up a single finger. Seifer frowned. "Pussy. He should have taken at least two before giving up."

"Well, I did stick my pistol into his injury," Irvine explained. "I wanted him coherent."

"He give us what we wanted?" Seifer asked, and Rinoa nodded.

"We've got coordinates for a location in Centra," she explained.

"Good," he replied. "I'll relay a report to Garden and get a CITU strike team assembled." As he spoke, the door opened again, and a SeeD medical team hurried in, with a stretcher, and entered the interrogation room. They didn't bat an eye at the bullet wound or the blood that covered the floor or the strewn furniture.

"And then we're going to go find Selphie," Irvine stated intently, and Seifer nodded.

It was three hours later.

The wind gently caressed the two men as they stood on one of the bluffs overlooking Galbadia City. The one in the dark coat, with the red eyes and wide-brimmed hat, sat astride his motorcycle as he looked at the other. Long brown hair flew about in the wind as the man held out a binder.

"They know about the lab," he remarked as the man atop the motorcycle took the binder. He rifled through the contents and nodded.

"Steele wasn't lying," he mused. "This is everything you had on the Requiem?"

"Right," he reasoned, and the red-eyed man settled back onto his bike and reached up, scratching at something beneath his hat..

"You're going with them?"

"They're going to attack what looks like the most important facility in Crell's network," explained the brown-haired scientist. "They'll need a bit of fire and chaos if they expect to get inside."

"Unless I beat them to it," muttered the figure atop his motorcycle, slipping the binder within his coat. He hooked a thumb inside the bandoleer that kept his sword strapped to his back, ensuring it was secure, and glanced back at his comrade.

"All of our mistakes are hidden inside that lab," he whispered. "We have to destroy it, before Hyne uses it to her own ends."

"Agreed." The wind picked up, throwing dirt and dust past the two men, and the scientist turned around and started walking away. "You'd better get moving. SeeD won't wait around to hit that lab. If you want to get the answers we need from Odine and fix this mess, we can't stand here with our dicks in the wind."

The man atop the motorcycle chuckled, and engaged the ignition. With a resounding roar that echoed off the bluffs and ridges around the pair, the vehicle shot forward and started flying across the Galbadian countryside, tearing across the plains and hills.

Within moments, the rider was gone.

-
I'm surprised at how short this chapter turned out. Ah well. Vicious assassins, interrogations, and more mysterious conspiricies oh my!

Apologies for the realtive lateness and shortness of this chapter. I've been busy, getting back into college and working on two other large-scale projects at the same time. Ah well.

Until next chapter...