Disclaimer: Yawn.
A/N: I must be doing something right since I got some pretty good reviews.
She looked directly at Squall, "Hello Squall. Yes, I am Shiva. It is nice to finally meet you."
"Bu…but your still junctioned to me! How can you be talking to me?"
"No Squall. I am the true Shiva.
Squall didn't respond. Passing out can do that to a guy.
Guardian Fury PresentsChapter 2: Shiva's Awakening
Squall knew he was dreaming. Being set so hard in reality for so long gave him a keen sense of when he was awake or not and he knew that he was not awake.
In his dream he saw Rinoa in her usual outfit with her pinwheel. She was in a field of flowers playing with her dog Angelo, throwing a plastic disc and watching him catch it.
'Rinoa,' Squall thought sadly to himself. He thought he loved her once, he probably still did but he doubted Rinoa's feelings. She had probably been the first person who had openly cared for him and he had opened her heart to her and dropped his defenses just for her.
He realized now that she had been caught on the rebound. She had been so desperate for companionship, for someone to remind her of Seifer, that after he had supposedly been executed, she had come on to Squall. Squall, so desperate for companionship never questioned her actions but accepted her.
Now that Seifer was back, things had become a little rock between them. Squall, never one to force someone into anything had pretty much let her go in heart and mind. He shuddered as the flowery landscape around him turned to winter and a light snow started falling.
The snow fell harder and faster, he lost sight of Rinoa and her dog in the flurry of flakes. The cold began to creep up on him even as he gathered his coat around him. The temperature kept falling, threatening to freeze him to death but he felt oddly comforted.
'Wait a minute,' he thought to himself, 'I don't have to deal with this!'
With a grunt of effort and force of mind he forced himself to wake up to the world of the living.
A few minutes earlier:
Shiva watched as Squall passed out. The blood loss he had suffered from the near penetration of his leg, combined with his afterward actions was taking its toll.
Acting quickly she rummaged through Squall's discarded pack, finally finding a med kit. Removing some bandages she summoned her power to numb his wound before wrapping the gauze around his leg.
The blizzard was starting again. Although she liked the cold she knew that Squall was not immune to it as she was. She had to find a cave quickly, for the blizzard was set to last all day and a good part of the night.
Over the years of being imprisoned within that ice monster she had a ridiculous amount of energy that needed to be bled off one way or another, and it was in the form of this blizzard.
Picking up Squall in a fireman's carry she quickly glided across the snowy landscape, using the howling winds behind her to boost her speed. Luck was with her as she quickly located a fair sized cave that contained room enough for the both of them.
Taking a look at her patient she saw that his breathing had regulated. She felt his pulse and wasn't really surprised to find that he was nearly back to normal.
'After all,' she thought, 'He survived an ice spear to the chest what should I expect?'
Muttering a few words under her breath she scanned Squall with her 'chi sight.' A fancy little trick that all of the Guardians knew that let them examine the life force of a living entity.
Seeing that he was now dreaming she sat up against the opposite wall and waited for Squall to awake.
Squall opened his eyes to see Shiva looking at him from across the cave. He took stock of his body and found that he couldn't move his leg. Looking down he saw that his leg was entombed in an icy cast so that his leg wound could heal easily while deadening the pain. It also stopped his leg from moving.
"Don't even try it Squall," Shiva said suddenly, startling Squall, "You're not going anywhere until this storm is over."
'The hell?' he thought, 'How did she know what I was thinking?'
"Come off it Squall. I've been with you ever since you entered the fire cavern. I doubt there is another person on Hyne that knows you as well as I do."
'True enough.' He thought to himself. He had always been junctioned to Shiva no matter where he was. His friends told him that the GF suited him saying that they both had a cold attitude.
"So…Shiva. Do you mind explaining what's going on?"
"About what?" she asked innocently.
"Like what the hell that ice monster was and why the hell you're still out here even though you're still junctioned to me!" he shouted. He always hated it when there were things that he couldn't understand or he was kept in the dark.
Shiva didn't even seem fazed by the outburst, "Squall if you keep trying to get up then I will freeze your whole body to that stone right there. I know you hate being kept in the dark so let me explain."
'Damnit!' Squall thought but relaxed himself anyways.
She unfurled from her sitting position and moved around a bit to get comfortable. For the first time Squall was actually able to get a good look at her. Before, when she had been summoned in battle, Squall had never really been able to examine her as he had always been distracted by the battle.
Now that she was sitting across from him he finally got an eyeful of her perfect figure and state of near undress, covered only by the swimsuit like apparel that fit her body perfectly…
Squall mentally started hitting himself, 'Do not think about that Squall!' he mentally chided to himself. He almost felt himself blush but was able to hold it back.
Shiva gave him a small mischievous smirk before finally seating herself on one of the rocks.
"Let's see, the story begins around, oh say 5,000+ years ago," She began.
"This is going to take a while isn't it?" mumbled Squall.
"Yes. Now be quiet. Long ago the ultimate force created everything and everyone in it. He created the animals, the people, and the world itself. Along with those things, the ultimate force created the Guardians, or as you like to call them, GF's."
"Each Guardian was given his, or her, unique ability and area of control. He created a total of 32 guardians, among them Ifrit, Quezacotl, Siren, and me. I was given control over the element of ice while Ifrit was given the power of fire. Quezacotl was given the power over thunder while the Siren was given the power over light. The point is that every GF had their specialty."
Squall interrupted, "32? But we only have 16 GFs that were cataloged in the history texts."
"Of course. Those 16, and some others are the only ones remaining."
"Remaining? But I thought it was impossible to kill of a Guardian!" exclaimed Squall.
"Normally yes. Now let me finish."
Squall sighed and readjusted his position into a more comfortable one.
"There is a saying that goes 'For every source of light there must be an equal source of darkness,' well the darkness eventually did come. It came in the form of Ultimecia. Using her power she began to corrupt the Guardians and turn them to her side. You might remember some of them when you went to fight Ultimecia such as Tiamat and Krysta."
"You mean all those monsters were GFs?"
"Some of the minor ones. When you defeated them their essence was scattered and they probably wont be appearing for a long time. The major ones such as Ifrit and I were dealt with more forcefully."
"What happened?" asked Squall in a surprisingly worried voice.
"To put it bluntly she ripped our spirit from our bodies and imprisoned them in various locations, usually guarded by powerful monsters. Over time the remaining shell of the GFs body began to take form again but it lacked the true power of the Guardian.
Shiva shuddered as if recalling a painful memory, "The powerful Guardians were stripped of all human traits and emotions except the most primal instincts of combat such as destroying their enemies and submitting to ones more powerful then them. This was how the first of the Guardians were enslaved by the humans."
For some reason Squall was feeling extremely guilty. He and his friends had beaten more than one guardian into submission.
Shiva sensing his discomfort walked over and lightly punched him on the arm, "Hey cheer up! I don't blame you in the slightest. You were the one that helped free my spirit from its prison after all."
Squall spoke up, "So now that we defeated Ultimecia everything should return to normal right?"
Shiva sat down next to him, "Not quite. There are still some minor problems. Every guardian that you know of is still imprisoned and guarded."
"So all we have to do is release them from their prisons and everything will be fine right?"
"That brings us to the second problem. Ultimecia wasn't the one behind all of this."
This shocked Squall to the very core. He could already feel the peace they had worked so hard to obtain slip away. In a voice that was cold as hard steel he asked Shiva, "Who is it?"
Grim faced Shiva replied, "No one knows his real name. The name he goes by now is Omega Weapon."
Balamb Garden:
Newly reinstated Instructor Quistis approached the elevator door to head to Cid's office. It had been 2 days since anyone had seen or heard from Squall and the garden was walking on eggshells when the news of their commander had leaked out.
From what Quisits had heard, Cid had sent Squall on a solo mission somewhere to help him relive some of his tension. She, along with a lot of other people, had seen the pent up energy Squall had and many had agreed that Squall needed a vacation.
Cid, knowing that Squall would never accept time off, sent him out on a low risk mission going solo, but he had not returned.
Pushing the button repeatedly in the hope that the elevator might go faster, Quistis rode the machine to the office.
When the door finally opened she saw a grim faced headmaster seated behind his desk. He was focusing intently on a small computer monitor, seeming to ignore the world around him.
"Headmaster…" Quistis began but she was cut off.
"In a second Ms. Trepe. I think that all of Squalls friends should be here to listen to this."
Over the PA system a loud message rang through the halls, "Rinoa Heartilly, Zell Dincht, Selphie Tilmitt, and Irvine Kinneas, please report to the headmasters office. It concerns commander Leonhart.
Rinoa Heartilly stopped looking at the copy of Squall's ring and placed it on her nightstand before running out of the room.
For the first time in the history of Balamb Garden, Zell Dincht left a hot dog half uneaten and ran to the elevator.
Selphie Tilmitt abandoned her hold on the ladder supporting one of the more unfortunate Garden Festival Workers to run out of the Quad.
Irvine Kinneas stopped in mid sentence as he was hitting on the Library Girl and walked away with a hasty goodbye.
A few minutes later:
The friends gathered in the headmaster's office awaiting the words of Headmaster Cid.
"As you may or may not have known, Squall was sent on a low-risk solo assignment as a sort of semi-vacation."
A few of the people present nodded.
Waving a hand to Xu a holographic screen popped up, showing a world map.
"Squall was assigned to rid Shumi Village of an Ice Monster that they claimed had been plaguing their lands. The sources were unreliable and were thus written off as hallucinations and the like."
Zell raised his hand, "Excuse me sir but to be quite frank, shouldn't you have know better?"
If Cid was offended by Zell's words he didn't show it, "That's the beauty of hindsight Zell. We all have perfect 20/20 vision."
A red line began to appear on the map.
"The Ragnarock was implemented with a tracking device recently so we could track its progress in the even that it was lost or stolen. This is Squall's path."
The red line made a beeline for Shumi Village for the most part. As it neared its destination the line became erratic and shaky before finally disappearing all together.
"We lost the signal around this area. Citizens from Trabia Garden have reported a large blizzard appeared and engulfed a large part of the island. As of now, we do not know what has happened to Squall."
Selphie piped up, "So what are we going to do about it?"
Cid sighed, "We can't do anything about it."
This time Irvine spoke up, "But we do have the floating garden! Couldn't we use that to…"
Cid interrupted him, "Irvine, the Ragnarock crashed in that storm. What makes you think that the garden will be any different?"
Irvine was silent.
Rinoa was the last to speak up, "Cant we do something?"
Quistis was the one who responded. In a defeated voice she said, "All we can do it ride the storm out and pray for Squall's safety."
A/N: Another chapter up and running, hope you enjoy it. Thank you to the three people that reviewed my story.
