Chapter Nine:
A/N: This chapter is incredibly important to the story, in the sense that it begins one of the (many) twists of the overall plot. Sorry about the long time for this update!
Gullwing Yunie: Thanks, glad to know you like my descriptions. Actually, I feel it's the weakest part of my writing.
The cold air bit through Tessa's uniform and clouds that seemed to press against her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe, enshrouded the moon overhead. Tessa had a bad feeling, but she rationalized it as first-mission jitters. However, she did recognize one worry as legit. She had never heard of a student doing the kind of assignment that she was. It had always been SeeDs assigned to it, even if it was grunt work.
Unfortunately, the path to Balamb was unlit and her flashlight was far too small to efficiently illuminate her way. She saw the path curve to avoid a forest, her destination. She turned back and looked at the Garden, lit up like a candle store.
The small pack she had bought in Balamb while on a trip with her friends was in her left hand. It was filled with vials, scalpels, and tongs. Tessa was planning on exhuming the body while she was there. She had a feeling something odd was happening.
She remembered how, about twenty minutes before, Squall had stopped at the Garden's edge and silently watched as she departed on her own. It was more the fact that she was alone than anything else that caused the fear to boil up inside her. Still, Tessa felt determined to prove that she didn't need to be accompanied by a man just to do some simple grunt work.
Stepping off the path and onto the soft dirt, Tessa raised her flashlight and looked at the dark outline of the trees. There was the scuffle of monsters fleeing from the light, and Tessa took a deep breath and started walking toward the woods.
"She said she strayed, so she must not have gone in too deep," Tessa muttered as she pushed an evergreen branch out of her way. Balamb, even with its pseudo-tropical weather, still housed several plants native to more temperate climates. It had confused scientists to no end.
The forest was thick and Tessa could hardly see, even with the aid of her flashlight. She would push branch after branch out of her way, but only to scratch her arms on two or three for each one she displaced. Often she would find herself stumbling over stones and tripping on twigs. That was why she didn't notice the object that made her trip.
"Ow!" she yelled. Tessa looked around and saw her flashlight, which had flown out of her grip upon impact, lying mere decimetres from her right hand. She painfully rolled over and grabbed the light, shining it where she had been lying just a second before. There was a dark blotch and Tessa subconsciously checked her body, which yielded no evidence of injury. She moved the light further up and saw a large, rotund body lying on its side. Its skin was green with blue and pink spots.
"Lucky me," she said sarcastically as she pushed herself into a sitting position with her left hand. That was when she realized her examining bag was gone. "Lucky, lucky me."
She waved the light around and found the bag lying open at the Catcherpillar's head, some of its contents spilling out. She crawled to it and swept everything into the bag. She shined her light onto the Catcherpillar's head and saw a large bloodspot on its head.
"Wow, I guess I really am lucky," Tessa said as she set down her bag and opened it. Sticking the flashlight in her mouth, she pulled out a plastic baggie filled with cotton swabs and a small vial with a plastic lid that screwed off. She took the lid off the vial and set it on her knee, and then she opened the baggie and pulled out a cotton swab.
Carefully, Tessa swabbed some of the blood, which had already begun to coagulate, and stuck the swab in the vial. She screwed the lid on the vial and stuck it in her bag. Then she pulled out a pair of gloves, another vial, and a scalpel. Tessa set the vial and scalpel on top of the body while she put on the gloves. Tessa then opened the second vial.
Then she gently lifted a flap of skin that had come loose where Erin's knife had gone through (Tessa recognized the injury as being caused by the puncture of a sharp object) and cut off a small sliver of the tissue and dropped it into the vial. She was screwing on the vial's lid when she heard a crack.
Bristling, Tessa held the vial firmly in hand and swung around, holding out the scalpel as though it were a weapon. The light in her mouth revealed nothing and she sighed, her shoulders slumping and the flashlight in her mouth drooping slightly. She turned around and the light illuminated a pair of legs standing just behind the Catcherpillar's body.
Tessa looked up and saw a blonde woman in a dark blue suit similar to that of the man that Cid had referred to as Rude. The flashlight fell from Tessa's mouth and her eyes grew wide in curiosity. "Who the hell are you?" she asked. The woman didn't say anything; she just narrowed her eyes.
"If you don't mind, I have work to do," Tessa said as she looked at the ground for her flashlight.
"As do I," the woman said. Tessa jerked her head up in time to have her chin meet with the woman's boot-clad foot.
"What the…" Tessa started to say, but the woman jumped over the Catcherpillar and kicked Tessa in the side of the head. Her head swam, but Tessa lashed out with one foot. The woman easily dodged it.
"This is too easy," the blonde said with a sneer. "Reno told me that SeeDs were almost on par with our own SOLDIER program."
"SOLDIER?" Tessa whispered as her vision began to clear. The moon was suddenly bright "What's SOLDIER?"
"Huh?" the blonde woman asked as she kicked Tessa in the stomach. "I can't hear you, Sweetheart. The sound of your death is too loud."
"Bite me!" Tessa wheezed as she pressed the pin on her shirt. It was the one Squall had given her back in Cid's office, the GF Siren. The pin began to shine and Tessa heard the sound of the ocean fill her ears.
"You think that'll help?" the blonde woman said in a mocking tone. "It'll take more than Summoning Materia to defeat me?"
Materia? Thought Tessa as her pin grew brighter. SeeDs haven't used Materia in ages.
Tessa covered her eyes just as the woman pulled something out of her pocket. There was a bright light and Tessa heard the beautiful notes of a harp being played. She opened her eyes and saw a mermaid, the GF Siren, sitting on a large rock between Tessa and the blonde.
Water came out of nowhere, but even when it engulfed Tessa she never felt it and it never inhibited her ability to breathe. The blonde fell back and started to fall away with the flow of the water, but then Tessa saw something in her hand glow and the woman stopped moving.
A horse neighed somewhere nearby and Tessa swung her head around in confusion. She looked back at Siren and saw a large knight on a giant horse swing his sword at her. The knight was wearing white and black armour and his sword was as black as the night sky. Tessa immediately recognized him as the legendary Odin.
For a split second Siren sat there as though nothing had happened. She then began to glow, and instantly vanished, leaving Tessa defenceless as Odin loomed over her. He glared at her with his dark eyes and his steed snorted in her face before he rode away into the dark forest.
"I told you it wouldn't work," the blonde said as she stood up and walked toward Tessa, her hair almost golden in the pale moonlight. "They finally figured out that summoning Materia isn't as useless as they thought. We'd told them time and again, but they never listened."
Who is she talking about? Tessa wondered as she tightened one hand around the vial and the other around the scalpel. What is she talking about?
"Now you die," the blonde said as she loomed over Tessa, her body framed by the moon overhead. She reached into her pocket and pulled another object from her pocket. It was a dark green rock that seemed to glow, Materia.
"I doubt it," Tessa said as she wiped her nose with her sleeve. When she pulled it away it was covered in blood, but Tessa didn't notice. Instead, she launched the scalpel at the woman's hand, knocking the Materia out of it.
"You little bitch!" the blonde woman yelled as she kicked Tessa in the ribs, but Tessa rolled with the blow and kicked out with her left leg, her foot connecting with the woman's kneecap. The blonde fell and Tessa took the opportunity to begin crawling away, out to the walkway between Balamb and the Garden.
"Get back here!" the blonde yelled. She dove on top of Tessa and pushed her face into the ground. Tessa brought her elbow into the woman's side and knocked her off, but the woman kicked her hand, knocking the vial out of it.
Tessa rolled and grabbed the vial and stuffed it into her shirt pocket just as the blonde kicked her in the back. She grabbed Tessa by the hair and jerked her head up. Tessa saw the flash of metal in the moonlight and grabbed the pin on her shirt instinctively. She drove the sharp needle bit into the hand that was grasping her hair and fell to the ground before her throat was slit.
"Why are you doing this?" Tessa screamed out, but the woman didn't answer.
"Is someone out there?" Tessa heard someone call out. She was about to yell for help when a hand clamped down on her mouth. Tessa tried to bite it, but before she could she felt something bite into her shoulder. It felt like hundreds of white-hot needles were stuck in her. Then the blonde maniacally twisted the knife with her free hand.
Tears slid down Tessa's face at the pain, but she concentrated as hard as she could and grabbed the woman's knife hand. Tessa mumbled something under the woman's hand and the blonde jerked her hand back and yelped loudly.
"Did you guys hear that?" the person that Tessa had heard earlier said. "Someone's in trouble!"
She heard footsteps pounding on the pavement of the walkway and Tessa was glad that Erin hadn't wandered too far into the woods when she attacked. The blonde let go of Tessa's mouth and pushed her face into the ground again. Tessa smelled burnt flesh and the woman whispered in her ear, "you lucked out this time, Bitch."
"Over here!" the voice yelled and Tessa heard the sound of people crashing through the wood. The knife was painfully ripped out of Tessa's shoulder and she heard the woman running further into the forest. Within seconds a light was shining in Tessa's frightened, dirty face.
"What the hell happened to you?" a man in a SeeD uniform asked as he knelt next to her. Tessa reached out with her good hand and grabbed his arm. She couldn't speak; she was too traumatized.
"Cal, what is it?" someone else asked. Two more people, a woman in a SeeD uniform and a man in a student uniform, showed up. They began gawking at Tessa, their mouth's hanging open.
"I don't know. This girl can't seem to talk. I think she may've been attacked by that T-Rexaur that escaped a couple of weeks ago," Cal said. He had dark hair that was obviously a victim to the crew cut. "Let's get her back to the Garden."
"What was she doing in the woods alone?" the student asked. "Especially at night?"
"Unless she tells us, we won't know," Cal said as he stood up, lifting Tessa by her good arm. He led her out of the woods and onto the walkway. Then he spoke soothingly to Tessa, "It's okay, and no one's going to hurt you. I'll protect you."
Then Tessa's mind kicked in and she painfully jerked her arm out of his grip. "I don't need your protection, I can take care of myself."
"It doesn't look like it," the female SeeD said. "You're pretty beat up. You need help."
"No, what I need is to go one day without being told I need some man to protect me," Tessa said angrily as she glared at the trio. "I appreciate your help, but I think I can take it from here."
"You can't make it back by yourself!" the student said, but Cal laid his hand on the younger man's shoulder.
"What are you going to do, Dartone, force her to accept our help? Just forget it, we still have to get to Balamb and pick up that gift for Avue," Cal said. "Come on, let's go."
Tessa watched as the three people walked away and she turned around and walked back to the Garden alone.
"Tell me what happened," Dr. Kadowaki said as she bandaged Tessa's shoulder.
"I already told you!" Tessa said as she held a cotton ball to her nose. "I was attacked by some woman in the forest."
"And she was wearing a suit, using Summoning Materia, and had Odin kill Siren," the doctor said with a sigh. She grabbed a pair of scissors and snipped the bandage. "Why won't you tell me what really happened?"
"That is what happened!" Tessa repeated. "What is wrong with you?"
"Hold on," Kadowaki said as she stood up and pressed a piece of medical tape to Tessa's shoulder. She walked over to a phone that hung on the wall. It was only the third one Tessa had ever seen. The first had been in the infirmary at Lotia Garden and the second in Headmaster Cid's office. Kadowaki pushed a series of buttons and began speaking into the receiver. "Yes, thank you, I'll keep her here."
"What is going on, where is Erin?" Tessa asked. While Kadowaki had been on the phone Tessa had walked over and pulled back the curtain to reveal an empty, pressed bed. It was as though there had never been a woman on death's door lying in it.
"Miss Sans recovered and left," Kadowaki said as she led Tessa back to the examination table. "Shortly before you arrived Headmaster Cid had informed me to send her file to him. It looks as though she dropped out."
"I don't believe you," Tessa yelled. "I saw her, she was dying! I almost died getting this!" Then she pulled the vial with the piece of Catcherpillar skin out of her pocket and Dr. Kadowaki's eyes widened out of shock.
"Calm down," she said as she tried to take the vial from Tessa. "Give it to me and everything will be fine."
"Why should I?" Tessa yelled as she waved the vial about. "If Erin recovered then there's no need for it! I should just throw it out now!"
"Calm down!" Dr. Kadowaki said calmly. "You were just attacked by the escaped T-Rexaur," Tessa's eyes widened, "Yes, I talked to Mr. Regire and he told me what happened."
"I was not attacked by a T-Rexaur!" Tessa yelled as she kicked the table. "I was attacked by a blonde woman! She used Materia and stabbed me with a knife! She said that there were others!"
Just then several men in SeeD uniforms rushed into the infirmary and ran at Tessa, who stood stunned. She was tackled to the ground and the vial flew from her grasp and skittered across the floor. Dr. Kadowaki walked past the men swarming over Tessa and, in the confusion, slipped the vial into her pocket.
"Get her up!" Dr. Kadowaki commanded. The SeeDs lifted Tessa up and Dr. Kadowaki stuck as needle into her arm and began pushing a drug into her bloodstream. "This should sedate her." Within seconds Tessa's vision blurred and passed out, falling into the arms of Calvin Regire.