Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.
Chapter VII
Irvine bent down, his fingers on the handle of the car door, and grinned. "Mind if I drive, ma'am?"
Rinoa pushed his hand away and wrenched the car door open herself, scowling as she buckled the seat belt of the passenger seat. "Oh shut up, Irvine. We both know I never got my license."
Irvine walked around the other side and slid into the driver's seat. "Jus' bein' a gentleman," he said amiably. He started the ignition, and the engine of the Timber Rentals sedan juddered into life.
"You'n me on a road trip... Sure brings back memories," he said, once they were onto the highway.
"If you're angling for another beating, I'm not in the mood."
He glanced at her, taking in her dark expression. "Touchy today, aren't we?"
Rinoa gave a long, ragged sigh and tucked her hair behind her ears. "I just can't stand the way you do this.
"Do what?"
"The way you ramp up the stupid charm offensive in line with how nervous you are. It's so transparent. Can't you just shut down like Squall does? Or hit things, like Zell?"
"We've all got our ways of dealin' with things," Irvine replied. He felt exposed, having his coping strategy pointed out so directly. Selphie wouldn't do that, he thought. No doubt she saw straight through him, just as Rinoa did, but she'd let him carry on and do his thing. Indulge him. That was why she was...
The only one for me. Hell, the only one'll who put up with me.
But maybe, a voice told him, he wasn't the one for her. What did he have to offer Selphie? How could he possibly be perfect for her, in the way she was for him?
Irvine frowned, and pushed his boot against the accelerator.
"Sulking now, are you?" Rinoa asked tartly. "Well, it's preferable."
He made a noise through his teeth. "I'm thinking."
"There's a first time for everything." The scorn dripped off her tongue like acid.
If she was bringing out the insults, it meant her nerves were rattling her, too. Irvine could see through Rinoa as easily as she saw through him; not that he would be so ungentlemanly as to mention it. Instead, he flashed Rinoa his most aggressively charming smile, ignored her responding look of disgust, and returned his eyes to the road ahead.
They were getting closer. He knew from the memory of his previous drive that the Temple of Hyne would be visible at the horizon as soon as the car had climbed to the crest of the current sloping hill. Before they reached the top, Rinoa's arms stiffened into rods at her sides, her white fingers digging into the cushion of the passenger seat. Irvine glanced across at her.
"You okay?"
She swallowed. "You... I suppose you can't see it."
"We'll see it soon," he replied, thinking that she meant the temple.
"The magic. The aura. Like a... tornado, or... You can't see anything?"
"Nope."
The car was at the top now, and the last valley before Shenand Hill lay before them, the temple a gray pinprick in the distance. Irvine glanced at Rinoa again. Her eyes were wide, fearful, gazing up at some unseen mass in the sky.
"Lookin' bad out there?" he inquired.
She didn't answer, and he drove on in silence. Rinoa shuffled in her seat, fiddling with the pair of silver rings on her necklace.
"Listen, Irvine, it... It might be me you need to turn the gun on. Just be ready for that."
He spluttered in disbelief. "Don't talk goddamn nonsense, Rinoa."
"I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it. Magic like that... I don't know how it'll affect me. If whatever's got Selphie gets hold of me, well... I'll probably be worse than she is. A lot worse."
"For the love of mercy, woman," he muttered, then cleared his throat. "I'm not goin' to shoot you. I'm not goin' to shoot either of you. Hell, I'm not even loading up the damn gun." He mentally kicked himself. Said the quiet part out loud, genius.
Rinoa pursed her lips and gave him a look of deep disapproval. "Then you're breaking Squall's orders again."
"Since when were you SeeD's little rule enforcer?" Irvine's knuckles tightened against the steering wheel. "Which do you think'll piss Squall off more? Me breakin' orders, or me shootin' his girlfriend?" He caught sight of himself in the mirror, where an unfamiliar, angry young man glared daggers back at him. He shook his head, willing himself to calm down. "Just keep a hold of yourself. You'll be fine. We both will."
Her eyes narrowed, and he braced himself for her retort, but it did not come. Rinoa pulled the seatbelt flat across her shoulder, turned her head to the window, and neither spoke as the car sped onwards, carrying them closer and closer to Selphie.
Rinoa's whole body was tense as they walked through the arch and into the half-light of the temple. She still had not spoken to Irvine, though he could hear her breathing now, hard and strained. He had the feeling she was fighting something off. Something in the air that he couldn't see, couldn't touch. He almost felt it, though. There was a heaviness, a dense darkness that hadn't been there last time. Maybe this was the result of the past week of Selphie draining that vast Draw point bone-dry. Irvine shuddered. Whatever it meant, it sure as hell wasn't good.
"At last. I have waited for you, Rinoa."
That odd voice, with barely any traces of Selphie left in it, rang out across the chamber before his eyes could focus on her in the dim light. Then he saw her, and his heart lurched, just as it had before. She wasn't Selphie, not any more. She - or it, he didn't know - had taken Selphie's face and body and was wearing them as a costume. Since last time, she had added smears of reddish-gray mud to her cheeks and forehead, in a childlike approximation of Ultimecia's facial markings. In any other context she would have looked ridiculous. Irvine wished he could laugh. The cold chill of terror on the back of his neck told him to keep his damn mouth shut.
Rinoa flinched noticeably when Selphie stepped closer. Irvine kept his eyes on Selphie. For a moment, he caught a glimpse of movement in the air around her body. An impression left by the aura, perhaps. While Irvine knew that he wasn't as skilled at magic as most SeeDs, he surmised that the experience of using para-magic left him with a sensitivity to whatever it was that Rinoa could see. He concentrated, and accessed the part of his mind he used when trying to Draw from an enemy in battle. There it was: a faint purplish-black glow around Selphie, whizzing and moving at breakneck speed. He blinked, lost his focus, and it was gone.
Selphie leaned forward and embraced Rinoa, holding her close and stroking her hair.
"I knew you'd come. We are sisters through Hyne, you and I."
Rinoa had frozen, and Irvine wondered if he should intervene, to free her. But she gently pulled herself away from Selphie's arms, and looked Selphie up and down with wide eyes.
"Wow," Rinoa stuttered. "I mean, I heard you'd had a makeover, but... wow."
Selphie brushed Rinoa's cheek with her fingers, and the possessive adoration in her eyes was a jolt to Irvine's chest. She'd never looked at him like that. He wasn't sure he even wanted her to. The expression was not one of love. It was closer to avarice.
"I am everything you should be, Rinoa," she said.
Rinoa took a step back. "Selphie calls me 'Rin'."
"Do you think that I am not Selphie?" Her tone was wounded, but her eyes were hard, and Irvine moved to Rinoa's side out of instinct. His fingers curled around the rifle slung over his shoulder, even though the barrel was empty.
He had a roll of bullets in his coat pocket, though. Never say never.
"I don't know what you are," Rinoa replied.
The air around Selphie began to move faster, and her hair was caught in the movement, swirling and snaking out into a wispy crown above her head.
All traces of affection left Selphie's face, her eyes flashing with fury. "Then why are you here? And why bring him? Did you come to mock me?"
A blast of air hit Irvine's face, and the temple's stone wall slammed at his back, forcing the air from his lungs. He kicked, and his boots flailed, useless in mid-air. She had pinned him against the wall, high-up, and the heavy force at his chest was pushing harder, crushing him. He tried to croak out words. "Rinoa, I could really use a-"
In an instant, the force was gone, dispelled. Irvine's battered body felt like a feather buffeted on a soft breeze as the gentle buoyancy of a Float spell carried him to the ground, and the familiar crimson shimmer of a Shell enclosed around him before his feet touched the floor.
Rinoa had her back to him, but the fingers of one hand were outstretched in his direction. "Thanks," he breathed.
"We're here to rescue our friend. From you," Rinoa told Selphie, her voice stronger than before.
"Selphie accepted me. She welcomed me. She is one with me, and I with her. We are indivisible."
You're wrong," Irvine rasped. "She tried to break free from you. Tried to save me."
Selphie turned to him, her face contorted with rage. "Do not speak in my presence, boy!"
Flames coursed towards him, engulfing the Shell, tearing at its translucent walls. One tendril of fire ripped a hole in the spell, and the bubble was filled with black smoke. Irvine's body shuddered with coughs, the acrid fumes stinging his nose and lungs. He slammed a fist into the Shell's walls, desperate to break free.
It held fast, and he sunk to his knees, covering his mouth with his sleeve, gulping tiny, hot breaths through the thick fabric. Then the whole Shell was gone, like a popped bubble, and the smoke dispersed across the cavernous chamber of the temple. Rinoa was at his side, her palm thumping his back, pushing the last coughs out. He felt a sweet balm sweep over him, a Cura spell, he thought, and gripped her knee in wordless gratitude.
"I... think I can do it," Rinoa whispered. "I can see where I need to pull. I can't hold the Shell at the same time. You'll need to run while I-"
"I'm not runnin'." Irvine pulled himself to his feet, straightened his hat, and half-stumbled towards Selphie. Time to be the decoy.
"Go on then. Do it," he challenged. She glared up at him. Magic or no magic, he still towered over her, and it lent him a false confidence. He swaggered closer. "Can't, can you? She won't let you. She's still in there."
"How dare you?" Her voice was low, terrifying, and he had no doubt she would kill him. Just a few more seconds-
"My Sefie won't let you do it. She's stronger than you'll ever know."
Her hands rose above her head, and he could see the magic massing there. "The vessel means nothing! She is nothing! And you will be-"
She tottered, nearly losing her balance, and cried out in pain. "No! That is not yours to take!" Selphie clawed at the sides of her head in helpless agony. "Get out!"
Irvine looked at Rinoa, who was standing stock still, her face a mask of concentration with half-closed eyelids. She was stretching out both arms, and the dim mist in the air around them had warped into a concave shape. Irvine could feel the pull sweep across the chamber. The unseen cloud, the storm, the darkness, was all gravitating towards Rinoa. He shuddered as it passed through his body.
The glow that had appeared in Selphie's hands spread around her body. It was frenzied, manically shifting. If this was the only part visible to him, Irvine wondered, how much could Rinoa and Selphie see? Just how much was there?
The aura was tugging away from Selphie, and her arms swung wildly as she tried to catch it, cling on to it. "Not yours. It's mine. Mine." He could hear Selphie's real, Trabian accent returning now, her voice a plaintive, childish whimper, echoing "Mine, mine, mine...".
The edges of the glow dulled and flowed into Rinoa, trickling at first, then a rush of barely-perceptible movement tore through the air, and Selphie's legs buckled under her.
In the same moment, Rinoa sunk to her knees, and a light crackled across her skin. Irvine looked on in terror at the flash of another woman's face superimposed on hers. Sharp, unfamiliar features filled with malice. With anger.
"Not me. You will not take me." Each word Rinoa spoke came slowly through gritted teeth. "You will not."
Her head bowed to the floor, and when she looked up, her features were Rinoa's again, pink and flushed with exertion. "She's gone," she said quietly.
Irvine threw his rifle to the floor, and ran to Selphie's crumpled form, a rag doll sprawled across the flagstones.
"There's a pulse. There's a pulse, but..." He lifted her by the torso and cradled her to his chest. "It's too damn faint, Rin, it's barely there..."
The rest of his words were lost as he pulled Selphie closer to him, his forehead pressed against hers. Irvine held her in silence while wave after wave of Rinoa's healing magic poured into Selphie's limp, absurdly tiny body, and he waited for the end to come.
A/N: The fire attack was a reference to one of Selphie's dummied-out Limit Breaks, 'Catastrophe' (which is apparently hackable and has a normal Fire animation as a placeholder). Selphie: so powerful she had to have her limits nerfed.