Balamb Beach reverberated with the sounds and scenes of combat as the students and SeeD fought their unknown adversaries. Blood washed away in the sea water as both side met sudden deaths or slowly died from their wounds. Magic flashed by and bullets tore through bodies in intense moments as the two side sought to end each other. Squall was not a stranger to the battlefield and his senses were heightened during the conflict, but Rinoa was not like him and the other SeeD. Though Rinoa had fought alongside him and the others in numerous skirmishes against monsters and Ultimecia she never coped well with massed human violence. Squall didn't blame her, she did not know how to process the orchestrated violence that humans dealt to each other when it was on a large scale.
Squall jumped off Garden's entrance ramp and focused into the madness that laid before him, he saw flashes of magic coming from the ocean and his eyes finally found Rinoa. She stood alone alongside what was once members of SeeD who had likely been destroyed by the aggressors who were casting their magic now towards her. Firaga burned around her, blasting steam and glassing the sand around her feet. Her shield held and she fired back at her aggressors with a blast of Blizzaga, which was incinerated before it reached her target. Squall blinked and then corrected himself as he saw four figures clad in the dark grey aquatic uniforms. Except there was something different about them. He didn't keep looking and instead hurtled himself towards Rinoa as fast as he could run. His breathing increasing as he pushed himself to run faster. More magic struck at Rinoa and she stumbled back until her shield crumbled into her and she was knocked off balance onto the glassed sand. Squall jumped over Rinoa's collapsed body and dove directly into the Firaga spell. He swung his Lionheart gunblade directly into the core of the fiery spell and deflected most of the damage away from him.
His uniform coat was now singed and damaged beyond repair. He tore off the remains and only his bare chest stood between him and any aggressors now. The four figures did not attack him however, and instead began to spread out more. Rinoa raised herself up next and recasted her Dispel shield with an angry expression on her face.
"Oh look Genetive, your crush has already gotten half-naked for you." The assailant on the far left joked; Squall was taken aback. Something about that name struck him as familiar. The speaker was female, Squall realized all four of them were. Their faces were hidden behind black diving masks and their bodies were covered in bulky protective uniforms so he didn't realize right away. Their movements gave them away.
Squall looked over at Rinoa for a second and saw blood lining her mouth. "Are you alright?" He whispered loud enough to be heard by her. Rinoa didn't answer and instead massive lightning came from her fingertips and struck towards them in a powerful Thundaga spell that could electrify a hundred bodies. The four women moved their arms in a similar pattern and rock came jutting out from below the water and three chunks of massive stone hurtled towards the lightning strike, stopping and fizzling it out completely. Only three of them casted the Earth spell, the fourth had casted a Blizzaga spell and casted dozens of lethal ice projectiles towards them. Squall barely raised his gunblade in time to deflect the first few and only through Rinoa's quick actions of pulling him within her shield did he not become impaled again with ice magic. Immediately after blocking Rinoa's Thundaga the other three joined their partner in hammering Rinoa's shield with more Blizzaga magic. Rinoa was struggling to keep her shield up, sweat and her own blood covered her face. Squall wasn't going to wait for her shield to fail and summoned Leviathan from within his mind, coaxing the strong Guardian Force to summon a massive wave. Anything to give him and Rinoa to regroup with the other surrounding SeeD. But just as Leviathan's protective shield, the four mysterious women were surrounded by what must have been a dozen of their minions. They rose from the sea water and began to pelter Squall with gunfire, and to his dismay the four women each began charging up Thundaga. Leviathan could not absorb that much damage and that magic would hurt them badly; Squall then noticed something beyond them.
Squall saw a boat flying towards them and then he turned his attention back to the four dominating figures still half submerged in the beach's tides. Squall grabbed Rinoa, felt Leviathan's shield fail and the pain of bullets pounding his skin. And he watched as the entire group in front of him was flattened by a Dollet Speed Boat with Seifer and his posse at the helm. The boat grinded to a halt in the sand next to them and the familiar voice of his old rival filled the suddenly quiet air.
"Look puberty boy, I know you just discovered girls but get them in a room before you strip." Seifer called out to Squall as he jumped off the wrecked boat.
"Seifer?" was all Squall managed to say as he pulled himself and Rinoa up. They were both in bad shape. Selphie, Irvine and Zell came running past the boat and helped them up, Zell sneered when he saw Seifer standing on the beach.
"What the hell are you doing here?" He screamed at him.
Raijin and Fujin hauled themselves out of the boat, a little less dramatically then Seifer.
"We came to deliver an ass-whoopin ya' know!" Raijin quipped, "And we deliver by sea!"
Fujin pushed past and pointed behind Squall. "ALIVE."
Squall turned, barely holding onto Rinoa with his left arm and gunblade in his right. His body hurt, but he quickly forgot that as he looked upon the frozen ocean in front of him. Somehow the four women had frozen the water around them and barely missed being crushed with their less fortunate troops. The ice cracked, then shattered and exposed the four women. The one in the middle growled at them loudly and ripped off her helmet. Strikingly blonde hair poured out exposing a beautiful white face that shook Squall to his core. It wasn't the face, it was the eyes he knew. Those golden eyes had peered into his soul before, in a short period of his life that he no longer remembered. But she seemed to know him.
"Squall, you' re coming with me." She said coolly. The four women charged up the beach towards him and his stunned group of friends.
"Puberty boy, you're not supposed to stick your d-" Then they were all consumed by vicious magic.
Hey everyone! Glad to get back in motion again! I've been working this one through my mind and really wanted to get Seifer and his Posse into this chapter. More awesome fun to come soon as I get back into my rhythm of short but weekly writings. Have a great weekend!