C: cd nomad/fanfic/1388651

C/nomad/fanfic/1388651 chaptr12.rtf

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(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? R

"Okay, here's what we've gotta do!" explained the newcomer, as the spaceship she was standing on the ramp of bobbed in the air amidst the regrouping monsters. "Squall! You create a perimeter with Zell! Irvine, protect Rinoa! Quistis, you and Seifer cut to the right and catch the monsters' flank; then we'll divide them to make a run for the exit!" She was using both arms to point dramatically towards each of the people she named as well as the places she wanted them to go. "I know the odds are tough, but if we stick together, we can do this!" She pumped her fist dramatically to go along with the "do."

Everyone just stared at her for a moment. "...Who are you?" Quistis finally asked, narrowing her eyes at the girl.

"Oh, yeah!" she said. She'd forgotten to introduce herself, assuming everyone would know her just like she knew them — how silly was that? "I'm Kelleigh Marisubaka!" (Her first name is pronounced 'Ka-LAY'. It's important that you know that.) "My full name's Kelleigh Anne Marisubaka-Schoenmeyer, but my friends just call me Kelleigh! ...Most of my enemies call me Miss Schoenmeyer." (Her last last name is pronounced SHOWN-my-ur. It's not at all important that you know that.)

"How do we know we can trust you?" asked Quistis.

"Hey, are you kidding?" asked Irvine; he and Rinoa were conscious again for some reason. "No way anyone so beautiful could be dangerous."

"Thanks, Irvine," said Kelleigh. "But you're not really my type." Then she waved at Seifer. "Hey, Seifer!"

Seifer swooned. Quistis glared.

"Guys, about the horde of monsters trying to kill us?" asked Nida, who was trying to holding off an attacking Anaconduar.

"That's right!" said Kelleigh, posing again. "Everyone, execute plan!"

"Wait a minute," said Quistis. "Why are we trying to get to the exit, anyway? If we want to escape, can't we just get on that ship and—"

"No, we've gotta save Selphie first!" replied Kelleigh.

Everyone looked at each other in confusion. "—oh, yeah!" Zell exclaimed after a second. "We're trying to save Selphie, who was abducted by aliens in Chapter 3! I just forgot that's why we came to the moon, 'cause nobody's mentioned her since Chapter 7, and we weren't in that scene!"

"In the last chapter, you mentioned her," Nida said.

Zell looked at him confusedly. "Huh?"

"Also, monsters," Nida added. The Anaconduar had managed to coil itself around his legs.

"More to the point," Quistis broke in, "how do you know where Selphie is?"

"Oh, well it was just a simple matter of deduction, really," said Kelleigh. "I mean, the aliens who abducted Selphie also took the patch of land she was standing on, right? So they'd want to keep her someplace where the grass could survive! And there's your answer — she's on the (Lunar Surface), in a (Bio-dome)!"

"...But—" Quistis was incredulous. "That doesn't make any sense at all!"

"And we haven't even got to how she avoided the alien tractor beam," said Nida, who had now wedged a conveniently placed pipe in the Anaconduar's mouth, and was wrestling to prevent it from swallowing him whole. "And did I mention the monsters?"

"Indeed!" declared the Oilboyle that had been wrestling Seifer in the previous chapter. All the monsters who weren't eating Nida had crowded between them and the exit. Or generally surrounded them. "And no clever plan of yours shall protect you from your Pan-Galactic punishment! We shall tear you limb from limb, and suck out your internal organs so as to consume them! For justice!"

"Uh-oh," said Kelleigh. "Looks like they've had to prepare." She turned around and yelled back into the airship. "Guys! Plan B! Delta contingency!"

A few seconds later, Laguna, Kiros and Ward appeared on the entrance, carrying high-tech Esthar versions of their old weapons from 18 years prior.

"Okay, Mr. President!" Kelleigh said to Laguna. "You remember the plan?"

"You bet!" said Laguna. "Let's lock and load!" He cocked his machinegun.

"Laguna, this is a really bad idea," said Kiros.

"I said:" Laguna cocked his machinegun again.

"Okay!" Kelleigh said, pumping her fist and surveying the thousands of monsters crowding around them. "Now, the odds are evened up a bit!" She pointed theatrically towards the exit. "Let's go!"

"This is getting kinda weird," Rinoa understated.

C/nomad/fanfic/1388651: more

Kelleigh was having a totally super-weird first day as a student at Garden. On the one hand, it was, like, a total dream, 'cause she'd transferred from Farragut High School on the South Side of Dollet because she'd been totally bored out of her mind and really wanted to test out the totally awesome magic skills she had taught herself using the GF she had found in her basement, and now she totally had the chance! It hadn't been easy, either — her super-rich parents thought Garden was just for filthy lower-class people who were too poor to have parents, so she'd had to run away from home and fake their signatures on the transfer papers, using the special Forgery skill her GF had just learned. Then her parents had hired a private agent to sabotage her plans, and she'd had to lead the guy all across the surrounding countryside, which got really annoying after a while. Finally she'd tricked him into taking back another girl who looked just like her but was a poor orphan who'd always dreamed of having rich, snobbish parents, and only then could she head for Timber, where she'd negotiated its independence from Galbadia and the grateful townspeople let her take the train to Balamb for free. On the way, she'd also rescued a kitten that had been stranded in the mountains surrounded by wolves and walked an old lady to market so she could buy treats for her grandkids.

As she went over this backstory in her mind, Kelleigh was leading the charge through some corridor, having already totally beat the crap out of the monsters in the courtroom. She was in the lead because her melee weapon — a sword attached to a ten-foot chain that she had built herself and could use to fence with people from across the room like in that scene from House of Flying Daggers — was so totally better than everyone else's.

"Okay!" she said when they reached a door labeled in some crazy moon language. "Here's the (Bio-dome)! Selphie's probably right inside!"

"How can this be the (Bio-dome)?" asked Nida. "Weren't we deep underground?"

"Who cares about that?" demanded Irvine. "Let's save Selphie already!"

"Right!" Kelleigh said. "Anyone know how to hack into the computer system and open this door?"

"Well, most of us have had basic or specialized SeeD training in electronic warfare," said Nida. "Plus, it doesn't look that strong; we could probably just break it and —"

"Looks like it's up to me, then!" Kelleigh concluded, setting to work at the alien door control panel. "Good thing I found that old book on hacking into alien computer systems in my parents' attic when I was nine!"

Nida sighed. Seifer watched admiringly. Quistis glared. Everyone else did other stuff.

"Got it!" Kelleigh said after about 4.27 seconds, and the door opened.

"How can you possibly be this good at everything?" Quistis asked suspiciously.

"I'm not good at everything," Kelleigh protested. "I learned that when I was 6, and finished 27th in the school spelling bee."

Quistis rolled her eyes.

"Guys, look!" exclaimed Rinoa. Inside the room was Selphie, tied to a chair. There was also a cow, a pyramid, a giant stone head, and the four Dark Crystals.

"Selphie!" Irvine ran up to untie her. "I'm so glad you're okay!"

"Well, that was ridiculously easy," said Nida. "...Wait a minute. Dark Crystals?"

"That's right!" said Golbez, approaching them. They hadn't seen him before because he'd been offscreen. "You didn't think you could visit the moon without facing me, did you?"

"Given that you died four Final Fantasies ago, I kind of did, yeah," Nida said.

"Hey!" exclaimed Selphie. "Don't spoil Final Fantasy IV for me! I haven't finished it yet!"

"The jig is up, Golbez!" Kelleigh pointed at him dramatically. "You're going down!"

"We'll see about that!" declared Golbez. "Meteo!"

"Huh?" asked Nida. "Did Golbez ever have the ability to summon Mete—"

"AAH!" exclaimed Laguna. "Look at the sky!"

Hanging in the sky above the (Bio-Dome) was a giant flaming ball of rock that had totally not been there before.

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Selphie. "That's not Meteo! That's Meteor!"

"That's right!" said Golbez, holding up his hand triumphantly to reveal the Black Materia. "You didn't think I went through all the other Final Fantasies without learning a trick or two, did you? And don't even think about summoning Holy!"

With that, he stabbed Aeris, who was also there; she fell to the floor, dead.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" everyone screamed.

"I can't believe you spoiled that, too!" exclaimed Selphie angrily, glaring at Golbez.

"Spoiled what?" asked Irvine, wiping away his tears.

"You're a jerk, Golbez!" Kelleigh declared. "And jerks always get their due! Hi-ya!" With that, she kicked Golbez in the face.

"Aah!" Golbez exclaimed. "My beautiful, beautiful face! You'll regret this!"

"I don't think so!" Kelleigh retorted.

Then she whistled, and Golbez was eaten by a dragon.

"...Okay, that was bizarre even by current standards," said Nida.

"Good work, Hiryuu!" said Kelleigh, patting the dragon's nose.

"That was awesome, Kelleigh!" Irvine gushed. "It's like I'm living some awesome dream full of awesome people, and all of them are you!"

"Yeah," Seifer said, gazing upon Kelleigh with admiration in his eyes. "That was pretty amazing."

Quistis glared.

"Uh huh," agreed Selphie. "But now Aeris is gone forever..."

"No, I got it," Kelleigh said, and used a Phoenix Down. Aeris jumped back to her feet.

"Thanks!" she said. "But...oh, no. I lost the White Materia!"

"That's okay!" said Kelleigh. "I have this master White Materia I won in a chocobo drag race last year!"

"A chocobo...drag race?" asked Nida. "That's it; I'm taking the rest of this scene off."

"Hang on, everybody!" Kelleigh said, holding up the materia. "Holy3!"

A bright light filled the sky; and when it faded, Meteor was gone. As were all the monsters that hadn't been mentioned so far in this scene but were swarming around them nonetheless.

"Yeah, take that, ya know!" said Raijin. "Guess their monster society wasn't so superior after all, ya know! 'Cause Holy judged them unworthy an' all, ya know? Which is why they all disappeared, ya know?"

"Yeah!" said Kelleigh. "Now it'll be easy to get out of here!"

"Kelleigh, I was skeptical," said Quistis, "but it's clear now we owe you all our lives because of how wonderful you are. Thank you."

"Yeah," said Squall. "I mean...whatever."

"Squall, you really need to open up more!" said Kelleigh. "Rinoa, I thought you were gonna be a better influence on him!"

Rinoa fainted.

"Is this scene over yet?" asked Nida.

C/nomad/fanfic/1388651: more

"Come on, let's get this over with!" Kelleigh said. They were now running down the hall again; Squall was carrying Rinoa, and Irvine was carrying Selphie. "We've gotta hurry if we're gonna recover the Ragnarok!"

"Um, couldn't we just escape on that other airship you brought wi—" Quistis began.

"No!" Kelleigh exclaimed. "We can't just abandon the Ragnarok! The Ragnarok is awesome! Even if it'll maybe need some work 'cause the Propagators kind of turned it inside out with their color magic, but — oh, here we are!"

Indeed, they had arrived back in the aliens' (Alien Holding Bay). The Ragnarok stood in the middle of it, the Propagators' color magic having twisted it into a Moebius strip and then balanced on its nose.

"Yikes!" declared a blue Propagator that was limping away, along with another, orange one. "—So you've come back for more, have you?"

"Aw, man," said Raijin. "How many times do we gotta kill these guys, ya know? 'Cause it's gettin' kinda repetitive, ya know?"

"You won't get away this time!" declared the orange Propagator. "We've used our color magic to render your pitiful human vessel utterly worthless! Without Propagator magic, you have utterly no chance of using it!"

"Propagator magic, eh?" said Kelleigh. "I thought you'd never ask! Draw...Coloraga!"

The Ragnarok quickly un-knotted itself, and in the process came crashing down on the two Propagators, crushing them.

"Why couldn't I ever draw that spell?" wondered Squall.

The vessel's ramp extended automatically, coming to a halt right at Kelleigh's feet.

"Yeah!" she declared. "Mission accomplished! Great work, guys!"

"We certainly seem to have beaten the odds," said Quistis. "And in ways I wouldn't have thought possible."

"And we owe it all to you," said Seifer to Kelleigh. "You have to be the most amazing woman I've ever met in my life. I barely know you, yet it feels my heart already belongs to you."

Quistis frowned. "That seemed like a strange thing for Seifer to say."

"Gee, you think?" asked Nida.

"Oh, Seifer," said Kelleigh, her hazel eyes gazing into his.

"I don't think his eyes are hazel, either," said Quistis.

"Everyone, stop talking," said Seifer. "Let's not ruin this moment."

Taking Kelleigh in his arms, he captured her in the overarching essence of a passionate kiss. By kissing her. Passionately.

"...Yeah, said Nida. "That's definitely a moment we'll want to preserve."

And they all lived happily ever after.

THE END

C/nomad/fanfic/1388651: more

"Wait a minute," said Irvine. "How can that be the end? Except for Selphie's abduction, nothing got resolved!"

Kelleigh blinked. "...Huh. That's a good point."

Then Selphie vanished.

"...?" asked Irvine. "Okay, now what?"

Kelleigh blinked. "—Oh, no!" she then exclaimed. "I should have known! That wasn't Selphie at all; it was only a hologram!"

"...What?" asked Nida. "How could it possibly have been a hologram? Irvine was carrying her! ...Come to think of it, why was Irvine carrying her?"

Then Laguna was hit in the head by a purple energy beam. "Augh, my brain!" he exclaimed, before collapsing to the ground.

"Laguna!" exclaimed Kiros.

"...!" exclaimed Ward.

"Well, that was random," said Quistis. "What's going on here, anyway?"

"The convicted may not ask questions!" boomed one of the two zebra-striped Propagators that were now standing behind them.

"It is as we thought!" declared the gray Propagator prosecutor, who was also there. "We knew that you foolish humans would attempt to retrieve your foolish human vessel!"

"This is one of the reasons I said we should take that other ship," Quistis said.

"The sentence may now be carried out!" declared the second zebra-striped Propagator. "Get them again!"

A small army of Propagators began charging toward the group, chanting "GRAG-NAR-BLARGH" loudly enough to make the whole room shake.

"Irvine?" said Quistis. "Next time, just let it end."

"Sorry," Irvine said.

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