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Chapter 2

Laguna rubbed the back of his neck as he closed the door behind Ayleia. He turned to see that everyone was apparently locked themselves inside their own thoughts. Selphie and Rinoa had both stopped their tears and Squall had finally put away his gunblade. He had only lowered it when Ayleia explained what her purpose was for her trip into the past. Finally Laguna cleared his throat to break the silence and get everyone's attention.

"So, now that we know that we failed, we need to come up with a plan B," he said thoughtfully. "Ayleia suggested that adding her power to SeeD was quite possibly the only way we stand a chance at defeating Adel before Ultimecia."

"Do you think we should trust her?" Squall asked, voicing the one question that was clearly the one that everyone wanted to ask. "She's a sorceress. Why wouldn't Ultimecia want to possess Ayleia instead of Adel?"

Nodding, Zell added, "That's a good question, but what I'm wondering is it possible that Ultimecia sent her here to distract us?"

"I don't think that is possible," Quistis answered. "If it were that easy, why wouldn't Ultimecia just come back here herself? Why possess Edea, Rinoa, or Adel at all?"

Irvine finally spoke up. "Yeah, why wouldn't she just go back in time as far as she needs to go to perform the time compression? It doesn't add up."

"But Ayleia said that her mother cast a spell to hide her powers from anyone who could sense them" Rinoa pointed out. "And if that's the case, then it's possible that Ultimecia doesn't know about Ayleia's power. After all she did kill all the other sorceresses, so I would guess that she thinks that she's the only surviving sorceress left. That just leaves the question about how Ayleia managed to bring herself back into our time."

"…."

"Ward suggests that maybe Ayleia created some kind of spell that can take someone to the past," Kiros offered. "I'm inclined to agree until we actually ask her, but that can wait until we figure out our current problem."

Pointing out the task at hand made everyone realize that they still need to decide on a new plan of action in defeating Adel. They all knew that they can't do anything about Ultimecia until they got past her and they were wasting precious time. "Well we still don't know if we can trust Ayleia. But if she's telling the truth, we don't have a lot of time," Squall acknowledged.

Quistis, Zell, Rinoa, Selphie, and Irvine all looked at him in disbelief. Squall wasn't exactly known for trusting people, so it was shocking to them for him to even entertain the idea of trusting a complete stranger. "Yeah, Squall's right," Selphie said. "But I don't think we have any choice but to trust her. She seems to be legit and we don't have time to worry about it now, so I guess I think we should go along with her idea."

"Selphie has a point. We don't have time for this, so let's put it to a vote and leave it at that," Laguna suggested. "Should we go along with Ayleia's plan?"

Everyone looked around. Hesitantly, Quistis raised her hand, followed by Rinoa, Irvine, and then the others. "So I guess that it's a go," Laguna said. Alright, let's bring our new ally back."

Before he could get the word "back" out of his mouth, Ayleia walked into the room holding a plate with a huge slice of Mrs. Moogle's cake on it. She looked at the shocked group and blushed. "Look, I read about Mrs. Moogle's cake back in my time and I always wondered what it tasted like since no one knows how to make it. Besides, Laguna told me to grab something to eat. Did you think I was just going to eat a PB&J? Besides, I heard that it's one of Laguna's favorite foods." She looked at the President, who was absolutely beet red with this revelation. "Sorry, I think I cleaned out your kitchen. I had no clue that time travel could take such a toll on a girl's appetite! Anyway, Laguna said you wouldn't take long, so have you all decided?"

"Yeah, we decided," Squall replied coolly. He could not BELIEVE that this girl was stuffing her face in the middle of this.

"And," Ayleia asked. "Well, we decided to go along with your plan," Laguna announced. "But you can't take your cake with you on the Ragnarok."

Ayleia blushed again. "Don't worry," she replied. "I'll have this finished before we leave the palace!"

Selphie was shocked. She absolutely loved Mrs. Moogle's cake and usually devoured it immediately, but Ayleia completely destroyed her slice. She was even more surprised when Ayleia showed enough etiquette to gracefully wipe her mouth with a napkin, hand the plate to a palace aide, and right herself as if she'd not just eaten the biggest piece of cake anyone has ever seen.

As they walked through Esthar headed toward the Airstation, they had lots of battles. The Lunar Cry had rained down so many monsters, that they seemed to be fighting their way to Ragnarok. But it gave them an opportunity to watch Ayleia in action. She effortlessly used her magic and was pretty decent with the pair of sais that she used. They had just finished off an Elnoyle and were almost to the Airstation when Quistis decided to break the silence "Um, Ayleia, do you mind if I ask you something?" Ayleia stopped and turned, prompting the rest of their group to stop.

"Sure, Quistis" Ayleia replied cleaning the gunk from the winged monster off one of her weapons. "Actually you all can feel free to ask me anything you want to know. But we need to keep going." They continued walking to the Airstation.

Ayleia slowed down enough for Quistis to get alongside her. "Okay, here goes," Quistis began. "How exactly did you get here? As far as we know, there is no known magic that can send a person through time physically, so how'd you do it?"

Great, more explaining to do, Ayleia thought. I knew I would have a lot of questions, so I guess it can't hurt and what the hell. It'll pass the time while we head for Lunatic Pandora. "It wasn't easy," Ayleia started. "I tried several spells before I got it right. Not even Ultimecia can pull it off, so in my book, it's quite an accomplishment. I'm actually proud of it."

"Yeah, but how'd you do manage it?" Squall asked looking back at her suspiciously. Even he was surprised at his curiosity. How she got here was obviously just as big a question to him as whether or not they should trust her. He was still debating the latter question, since he only agreed to go along with her plan so they wouldn't waste anymore time, but he fully intended to keep a close eye on their new "friend". Any funny business out of her, and he'd be killing three sorceresses instead of just two.

"Well at first, I tried several different items. I tried using Junction Machine Ellone and I added some Slowing Magic to it to see if that would work, but I ended up throwing myself across the room and broke the machine. I got a serious concussion, too," she responded patiently. "Then I tried combining the same magic with an Ultima spell, but I ended up slowly blowing up my room. Everything ended up in some sort of a disaster"

"But wouldn't Ultimecia have sensed your use of magic?" Zell asked. "Yeah, I would think that she would have sensed someone using magic and killed them."

"Well, yeah," Ayleia agreed. "But with my mother's spell protecting me, she couldn't sense the magic. It's blocked to any other person who would otherwise have been able to detect it. Anyway, I tried everything I could think of and nothing worked, so I started thinking about it some more. And then the idea hit me! I'd written spells before and they had always worked, so I started writing. I think I wrote like a million spells, none of which worked. And then I thought about it some more. I realized that I wasn't being clear enough with the writing, so I tried again and I carefully wrote a spell that would take me to the exact moment before you all left the Presidential palace to confront Adel. Fortunately it worked."

"Sounds reasonable, I guess," Laguna thought out loud. "But about this plan of yours. Have you worked it all out?"

"Oh, yeah I guess I can give you a rough idea of what I have in mind," Ayleia replied. "I'm not exactly one hundred percent sure that we'll arrive in time to stop Ultimecia from possessing Adel, but five SeeDs and a sorceress didn't have a prayer against them, so I figure if we have two sorceresses that we stand a chance. However, we have to get past Almasy. He has your friend Ellone and you need her for your plan to work, right?"

"Wait a minute! How do you know about that," Squall demanded. If he wasn't sure before that they could trust her, he was definitely not convinced now and before he could think about it, he had his hand on his gunblade.

Ayleia was just about tired of Squall's threatening her with that damned gunblade. "Dude, chill," she shot back. Her impatience was starting to show. "Look, I know you had a plan and that you needed Ellone because of the machine named after her. I knew that that was the reason that Ultimecia was looking for her and that was why Almasy had her at Lunatic Pandora. Ultimecia is planning to use her to take her further into the past once she took possession of Adel. I know you don't exactly trust me, Squall, but we're all after the same thing here."

"Are we really?" he asked icily. "I'm not exactly convinced of your motives, Charmeling. What exactly do you plan to accomplish by helping us?"

Ayleia rolled her eyes. Geez, is this guy clueless? she thought. Now she was pissed off. "What do I plan to accomplish? Are you serious!" she said, barely able to contain her emotion. The entire group stopped outside the gate to the Airstation. "I plan to stop an evil witch from destroying the world along with my family. You really don't get it do you?" She had begun yelling angrily, taking everyone aback. They had assumed that she was a pretty laid back person. Actually, Selphie, who had started to like her, had begun to think of her as a kindred spirit. The tears began to fall from her green eyes. They'd been bright and sparkly most of the time. Now they were dark and the color of her eyes seemed to begin to get darker and it looked as if her eyes were going to ignite. Wait. Do sorceresses' eyes ignite when they're angry? Zell wondered.

"My father was devastated when my mother died. He actually KILLED himself when I was thirteen," she tearfully continued. "In the letter he left for me, he said that he only waited as long as he did to make sure that I would be able to take care of myself. He told me that my mother had left something for me and he told me that he had hidden it until he felt that I was ready. What she had left for me was a bunch of her journals that served as a sort of guide to using my magic. He said that she'd written them for me because Ultimecia had begun killing the other sorceresses. She'd already planned to cast her protection spell, and she just wanted to insure that I was able to handle my abilities when I was old enough. I barely remember my mother and I miss my father, so what do I intend to accomplish! DO THE FUCKING MATH LEONHEART!"

She stormed past him, marching towards the gates of the Airstation. Rinoa, Zell, Selphie and Quistis all looked at Squall in disbelief. Irvine ran his hand through his hair and looked down. Man I thought Sefie was a handful! I'm not getting on HER bad side he thought. Laguna, Kiros, Ward, and Squall watched as Ayleia angrily stalked toward the Ragnarok.

Squall knew immediately after she told them about her father that he had unforgivably crossed a line with Ayleia. He instantly felt guilty when she said it, but he wasn't sorry that they had finally gotten to the bottom what was motivating her.

"…."

"Yeah, Ward's right Squall," Irvine said. "I think you forced something out of her that she wasn't ready to tell us about herself."

"Dude, no offense, but you went a little too far with her," Zell added.

Squall turned toward Zell, the guilt actually showing on his face. "Don't you think I know that! I didn't mean to open up a can of worms for her, okay! I just wanted to get to the bottom of her story. What do you want me to say?"

"You don't need to say anything to us, Squall," Quistis replied quietly. "But that girl up there was just forced to tell us something that she wasn't ready to talk about. It's something that truly hurts her to discuss. You need to apologize to her."

Squall mumbled something about being terrible with apologies. "Yeah, we know you're terrible with this sort of thing," Rinoa replied, "but you need to clear the air with her. We can't go into this battle with something like this hanging over our heads. It's distracting." Quistis and Selphie nodded in agreement.

"Rinoa's right, Squall," Laguna chimed in. "So just go over there and talk to her."

Squall looked at the rest of the group. They all looked back at him expectantly. He then turned back toward the gate. Ayleia had already gone inside the Airstation, so that gave him plenty of time to come up with an apology. He sighed and started walking to the gate.