Disclaimer : I don't own anything.
Note : I'm very sorry for the lack of updates. I'm trying to get at least two chapters a week, but because my schedule has changed, the 7-10 chapters has gone down significantly. I'm just trying to keep up and update at least once a week, at the very least.
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(B1, Kapri's POV)
Ok, so I wasn't expecting that.
I didn't even realize Shane looked at me, but I must've looked worried, or something, because he actually tried to reassure me. That's so an un-Shane-like thing to do!
But at the moment, all I can think about is that we're about to face Lothor. The same guy I hoped never to see again. Would it be my Lothor? Would he know me? Come after me? I didn't know. To be honest, I don't think I've ever felt such a strong urge to run and hide under my bed.
Or maybe Shane's bed.
At least I know that I'd be safe there.
So, here we are. Taking the elevator to B1, the Garden Master's room. I might not be fluent in the workings of this world, but if he's such a big influence on the Garden, shouldn't he have some mega-sized room up on a second floor, or something? Why make a home out of a dark, dank basement?
"Please! Listen to me!"
I gasped quietly, staying by Shane's side, as we exited the elevator, only to hear Headmaster Kanoi's voice coming from a little ways around a bend. What was he doing here?! This was the very same guy that demanded he be found and killed just a short while ago!
There was a loud ding behind us and I whirled around to find Dustin stepping off the elevator, looking confused as he looked around until his eyes landed on us. He narrowed his eyes in confusion and waved a little before running up to us.
"What're you guys doin' here?" he asked in confusion.
I raised an eyebrow and noticed that Shane crossed his arms over his chest as we both remained silent.
"What? Oh, me? I just came down here 'cause I saw you guys come down here." he said with a shrug.
"Let go of me! I'm not finished!"
I spun back around, and watched with worry as a Garden Faculty held Kanoi by the collar of his shirt, dragging him closer to us before pushing him away.
Kanoi glared angrily past the Garden Faculty and shook his head. "Greedy son-of-a-bitch! Why did I ever bother talking to you?!" he shouted in a rage. "SeeDs are brought up for the future! That that future is now! Why can't you understand?!"
Blinking in shock, I was torn between fainting and bursting out laughing. Ok, so this guy was far from the Kanoi I knew, but I never would've imagined that he held the balls to talk like that!! I chanced a glance at Shane and Dustin and noticed they seemed to be in shock as well. Apparently, they'd never heard him this angry before, either.
The Garden Faculty member shoved him to his knees, but Kanoi wasn't done yet.
"Dammit! I should've never trusted you! I wish I could go ten or so years back! To tell myself that you're nothing but a money grubbing son-of-a-bitch! Then I never would've built this place!"
I noticed Shane flinch and look hurt by the comment before he hid it behind a strong mask. I knew how badly that comment hurt him. How deeply. Whether he admited it or not, this place was his home.
Stalking angrily towards the elevator, Kanoi stopped a moment and looked surprised to see us there. "Shane?!" he looked at Dustin and I before his eyes turned guilt-ridden and he sighed. "You heard everything?"
Shane nodded. "...Yes."
"I'm embarrassed to say, but even us old men lose our tempers." he offered weakly. "Let's get out of here." That last bit was stated with clear venom in his voice as he got on the elevator.
"Sir, I still have to give you my report!" Shane called, turning to the elevator.
I got the feeling Kanoi was going to put it off. He really seemed like the type to not want to listen to this stuff.
Sure enough...
"Why don't you stop by my office later and we'll talk about it then." he said as the elevator doors closed and took him upstairs.
"You're the SeeDs that returned from Galbadia, correc?"
I spun around and noticed a Garden Faculty member standing right behind us. Taking a nervuos step back, I wondered if he really know I wasn't a SeeD.
Shane turned and nodded grimly, a look of anger residing deep in his eyes. "Yes."
"It's about time. Master Lothor has been waiting for you." he said with clear irritation. "Come."
We walked along behind him, around the corner, to a large room with what looked like a giant machine in it. I don't really know how to describe it, but it seemed to act as a life-support for something inside.
"Whenever Master Lothor calls, you'd best respond within 3 seconds." the man stated firmly.
"3 SECONDS ARE UP!" a loud voice boomed.
A type of doorway opened up and revealed Lothor, but he wasn't the same Lothor I knew. Not by far.
First, he was hooked up to the machine, obviously keeping him healthy or alive, or something. Second, he...just didn't look like my Lothor. He wore long black robes that fit around his bulbous body. His arms were...well, slightly larger than normal, going along with his body, but his hands were huge with extremely long fingers, and behind his black mask, his face looked more squished into it than it did before.
I could see from the look on Shane's face that this was a shock to him, and Dustin looked really grossed out. To be honest, he wasn't pleasant looking before, but now... Well, let's just say that when we get out of here, I seriously hope we never have to see him again. My breakfast was close to making a come-back.
"GIVE YOUR REPORT ON THE SORCERESS." he boomed as he glared at Shane with yellow eyes.
Shane looked a little embarrassed and I knew it was from the lack of time to properly come up with a report. Not to mention, I doubted he expected to be facing the Garden Master rather than the Headmaster.
He visibly swallowed before nodding and saluting. "...We failed to assasinate Sorceress Miko."
I frowned to myself, hearing that name. I remembered that it was Kanoi's wife and Cam's mother, back on earth, but I wondered if she had the same connections here, on Gaia.
"Confirmation of Headmaster Kanoi's order was made at Galbadia Garden... After Hunter Bradley of Galbadia Garden joined us, we set off to carry out the 'Sorceress Assasination' order from Balamb and Galbadia Garden..."
"BALAMB AND GALBADIA'S ORDERS?!" Lothor shriek angrily, slamming his hand down on a console. "YOU WERE TRICKED!"
I gasped and Shane paled considerably. "I...don't understand." he offered weakly, looking almost afraid to question Lothor and his goons.
"EXPLAIN TO THEM!" Lothor commanded one of the Garden Faculty.
One of the men came up and bowed to Lothor before turning to us. "Master Lothor knew all about the alliance between the Galbadian President and the sorceress. He heard it from the Galbadian Garden Master, himself."
"Galbadian...Garden Master?" Shane repeated in confusion.
"THE MASTER OF GALBADIA GARDEN IS A SUBBORDINATE OF MINE NAMED TYZONN." Lothor explained with a cold glare.
I so didn't like the scheming look in his eyes at that moment.
The Garden Faculty went on to explain how everyone knew that the sorceress would use Galbadia garden as her base, because she is so closely related to the Galbadian Government. Apparently, Lothor sent the order, himself, but Tyzonn, instead of using his own SeeDs for the battle, enlisted our help, so that the blame could be put on Balamb and Galbadia wouldn't suffer.
"THAT-THAT BASTARD!" Lothor screamed in anger, slamming his fist on the wall of the little bubble he was in.
"Are you saying that Balamb Garden had nothing to do with that order?" Shane asked incredulously.
The Garden Faculty shook his head and explained that we'd been in the wrong place at the wong time, making us prime targets for this mission. Like we already knew, the sorceress was the one to order the missile attack on Garden, and they seemed to insist that they had to make peace with her.
"Wait a minute. That's just..." Shane shook his head with a frown.
I nodded a little, knowing what he was going to say, and agreeing totally. That's just stupid!
"In order to do so, we needed to hand over those involved with the assasination attempt on her. We needed to show Garden's sincerity."
What sincerity? I thought darkly. So far, all I'd heard were blatant lies. They handed over innocent SeeDs that had nothing to do with the attack and they knew it. If I didn't know better, I would've sworn this was some sort of attempt to destroy SeeDs completely.
Lothor sneered from his seat. "OFFER THE SEED'S HEAD ON A SILVER PLATTER AND PRETEND WE OBEY THE SORCERESS!"
"Liar." I snorted, glaring at him. There was no way he was being honest with us, and I really felt it was a waste of time listening to this garbage.
"Wha... Why aren't we fighting the sorceres?!" Shane demanded angrily.
Spinning to face him, I felt my jaw drop. I didn't know so much about this Shane, compared to my own, but I did know that questioning orders was something he didn't care for. Then, I began to grin and turned back to Lothor, folding my arms over my chest. It's about time!
"What about all the training we endure every day?! What good is it?!"
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?! YOU LOST TO SORCERESS! QUIT YOUR WHINING!" Lothor yelled angrily.
"And why don't you just quit your lying?!" I shot back with a raised eyebrow. "Send them SeeD to show Balamb Garden's sincerity?! Please! You don't care about that!! All you care about is saving your neck!"
"Kanoi was saying the same thing..." one of the Garden Faculty mused out loud.
Suddenly, the ground shook and lights began to flash on and off on the machine Lothor was in. His cold yellow eyes glared at the two Faculty and they cried out in fear before running off. Quickly, we armed ourselves, knowing something was about to happen.
"KANOI?! THAT IDIOT KANOI DISPATCHED SEED TO KILL THE SORCERESS! AND IF YOU FAIL? THE GARDEN WILL BE DONE FOR!"
"And your ass is toast." I said indifferently, checking out my nails and making a face.
He snarled. "QUIET, FOOLISH GIRL! MY GARDEN! IT WILL BE ALL OVER! THAT IDIOT KANOI. HAS HE FORGOTTEN THAT IT WAS I THAT PUT UP THE MONEY TO ESTABLISH GARDEN?! I WANTED TO OFFER THE SORCERESS KANOI'S HEAD ALONG WITH SEED, BUT THEY SIDED WITH HIM! THIS IS MY GARDEN!" He roared.
"No! It's not just your Garden!" Shane yelled, swinging his gunblade wildly.
"THEN WHO'S IS IT?!" Lothor challenged. "KANOI AND MIKO'S?! THAT PATHETIC MARRIED COUPLE?!"
I blinked in shock and noticed that Shane's face, along with Dustin's had gone as pale as mine felt. But out of the three of us, Shane looked the most confused and hurt from the info. Probably because in my world, they had married and had a son, and Dustin wasn't as close to Kanoi as Shane himself.
"What...?" he asked shakily, the look in his eyes telling me that he was refusing to accept that knowledge easily.
Lothor squinted at us for a moment before he growled loudly and raised one of his deformed hands. "...NOW I GET IT. KANOI AND MIKO ARE TRYING TO TAKE GARDEN AWAY FROM ME! YOU'RE ONE OF KANOI'S FOLLOWERS, AREN'T YOU? PREPARE TO DIE!!"
The lid of the machine closed over him and two nodes on either side of his pod began to glow.
"Shane!" I called, standing by his side nervously as I watched one of the nodes change from blue to yellow.
"BLUE, YELLOW, RED! LOTS OF MAGIC WHEN RED! AS LONG AS COLOR STAYS, I'LL ATTACK SEEDS WITH MAGICS!" Lothor taunted loudly from inside his protective shell.
Shane closed his eyes and I knew he was doing that drawing technique. A large light blue light swirled out of the life pod and into his body before branching out and touching Dustin and I. Instantly, I recognized the presence of another Guardian Force, Leviathon.
Frowning, I regarded the pod and nodes carefully. They were made of metal, but when Dustin cast a Thundara on the yellow node, it was reflected back at him, showing that they were protected against magic.
The blue node turned to yellow and the yellow turned to red.
Dustin growled and ran at the life pod, doing three kicks to it before punching it hard. His face paled considerably and he jumped back, limping and holding his fist while shaking it.
Apparently, that didn't work.
I drew high level elemental magics from the nodes before aiming my crossbow at the red one and firing. It hit the screen, cutting across it, and in a flash of light, the node turned back to yellow.
Shane cast a Thundaga on the life pod and it hit severely, and I got an idea.
"Shane, use Thundaga on Lothor's pod!" I called with a determined stare. "Dustin! You and I will take care of the nodes! As long as they don't turn red, he's basically helpless!"
They nodded in understanding and Shane cast Double on himself before casting two quick Thundaga spells. Dustin and I attacked at the same time, and both yellow nodes turned to blue.
Then the pod shook violently and we all lost our balance, rolling or jumping out of the way when pieces of debris from the roof fell towards us.
The blue nodes turned to yellow before quickly turning to red.
"...Crap." I groaned as I stood back up.
Dustin raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "So much for being 'basically helpless'!" he called to me.
I didn't bother to retort, but watched as Shane summoned Quezacotl who attacked all three at once, and both nodes turned to blue, and Lothor's pod suddenly began to smoke. There was the sound of an explosion and the lid flipped open, revealing a rather pissed off Lothor glaring at us.
"DAMN YOU SEEDS! THIS IS MY GARDEN! YOU CAN'T DO AS YOU PLEASE!" he roared.
Raising my hand, I grinned crookedly. "Um, just so you know, I'm not a SeeD." I pointed out before whistling sharply and calling Angelo. He ran to my side and howled loudly, causing a bright beam of moonlight to cascade over us and make us temporarily immune to Lothor's attacks.
Shane used his gunblade to hit him six times before Dustin ran forward and pummeled him with his fists. Jumping up, he did a backflip and kicked him before driving home a spin kick and jumping back to our sides.
The machine began to shake wildly and Lothor looked around as it exploded all around him. Letting himself fall back in his seat, he was engulfed by the explosions and the lid closed, locking him inside.
"What the hell was that?!" Dustin cried as he stared at the machine in shock.
"That was definitely not my Lothor." I said with a raised eyebrow. "This guy was uglier...but not by much." I mused.
"Forget about it for now." Shane said quietly.
I looked at him and frowned, noting that his face seemed schooled to be blank. Then I shook my head. "I can't believe you just said that! I think what happened is really serious!" I cried.
His head snapped to me with a glare that made me think I might've stepped over my bounds. For all intents and purposes, I was only a guest here, and it was by his generosity that I was allowed to stay. I knew that what happened was bothering him, but he needed to talk about it, damn it! Not just close up and hide!
"What' the point in talking about it now?!" he snapped. "You don't know what's going on, either!" He closed his eyes and slapped a hand to his forehead as he shook his head. "This is crazy." he muttered in disbelief. "I don't know what's goin' on anymore. I feel like a helpless puppet being manipulated by some major scheme."
"Shane..." I walked over to him and hesitantly put my hand on his arm.
Looking at me a moment, I could see the silent apology. He nodded a moment later and sighed. "Yeah... I'm going to see the headmaster."
Dustin and I followed Shane to the elevator and to the first floor. I paused a moment with a frown, when he exited and headed in the direction of the Infirmary, but quickly remembered that Dr Shayla had asked to see Headmaster Kanoi. So with a sigh, I ran after him and followed them into the Infirmary.
"Do you want to see the Headmaster?" Shayla asked with a sigh.
"Yes, now." Shane said as firmly as he could while still being polite.
Fidgeting a little, Dr Shayla looked uncertain if she should let us in, and sighed. "Well, he's kind of-"
"It's all right now." Headmaster Kanoi's voice called from a room. "I think I'm about done crying now."
Still a little hesitant, Shayla gestured for us to enter and we did, finding Kanoi standing with a dry smile beside the bed.
"You all see me in such embarrassing states." he said as he rubbed the back of his head, his eyes a little red from the tears. "What shall we talk about?"
"What's the real meaning of SeeD?" Shane asked with a frown.
Pursing his lips, Headmaster Kanoi rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "SeeD... SeeD is Balamb Garden's elite mercenary force. SeeD will destroy the sorceress. The Garden will train SeeD members."
I blinked for a moment. So Balamb Garden's SeeDs are specially bred for fighting the sorceress in particular? It sounded a bit odd, or perhaps, like something that had taken a long time to plan out.
"The many missions around the world are only training for the final mission against the sorceress." he finished with a sigh and a regretful look in his eyes. "But now the sorceress has become a great threat. The final mission has begun."
"Please, tell us about Sorceress Miko. I heard she's your wife." Shane asked with confusion.
The sad look in Kanoi's eyes grew as he looked down at the bed. "You're quite right... She had been a sorceress since childhood. I married her, knowing that. We were happy. We worked together, the two of us. We were very happy. Then, one day, Miko began talking about building a Garden and training SeeDs. I became obssessed with that plan. But I was very concerned with SeeD's goal, that one day, SeeD might fight the sorceress. She laughed and told me that would never happen. However..." He trailed off into a mournful silence.
Shane nodded with an understanding look before sighing. "...And this Garden Master Lothor?"
"Besides the fact that he's an ass." I put in, grinning cheekily when I saw the corners of Shane's mouth twitch as he hid a grin of his own.
Kanoi looked up at me in surprise before chuckling a moment. "He's from the Shumi Tribe."
The what-what? I thought blankly.
"A black sheep of the tribe, one might say. We met while I was running around, trying to raise the funds to build Garden. He became interested in building the Garden, and we hit it off. Thanks to hid funding, we were able to build Balamb Garden. However, we needed an enormous amount of funds to run Garden, so we began dispatching SeeDs all over the world. Lothor's idea was right on the money. An enormous amount of capital began flowing in and the Garden began changing. We lost sight of our high ideals. The truth was covered up. That's probably enough. I guess it was my fault, for giving up control."
Shane nodded again. "What do we do now?"
"We can't float around forever." I added with a frown.
Kanoi nodded. "I just hope we can get things back to the way they were."
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Shumi Tribe - (Shoe-me Tribe) - I don't know how to explain it. It's a small village of Shumi in an isolated, northern continent. They are not human, and sometimes, evolve into Moombas, which is considered evolving into a higher species. Umm...what else? ... Oh! They're very proud of their inhumanly big hands. LOL.
There shuld be some more explanation in the next chapter. Like, who's the woman Shane saw in the Infirmary and saved in the Training Center? Is the Dream World just a Dream World? And possibly a little on why he's the way he is...
Hope you liked it.
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"...Sis..."
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R+R please
Thank you.
Tenshi