Chapter 41
I Couldn't Stop It
(Selphie)
Life without Irvine was weird.
He had only been gone a few hours, but already Selphie felt the void left in his absence. Additionally, there was a part of her brain that refused to accept that he was gone. Several times already, she had thought of something funny or something interesting and then said, "Hey, Irvy!" only to remember that he—for the first time in weeks—wasn't standing beside her.
"Oh…" she'd say afterwards.
(Maybe the GF is messin' with my memories.)
To keep herself distracted, and to prevent an overload of Irvine-related thoughts, Selphie turned her minds towards her task at hand: saving FH. She had told Irvine before he left that she would come up with something clever that would save the city. But now as the hours slipped away and no new ideas came to her, she was beginning to understand her own powerlessness in this situation. She was only one person after all. One SeeD standing against the entirety of the Galbadian Army.
She wandered aimlessly up and down the Horizon Bridge, walking from one end of town to the other, then back again. As she walked, she twirled her nunchaku in increasingly elaborate and beautiful patterns—some of which were useful in combat situations, but most were just for show. None of the citizens of FH seemed to appreciate her talents, however, as most of them glared at her for brandishing a weapon inside their peaceful city.
(They're just jealous 'cause they ain't got my skills.)
To prove her point to herself, she tossed her nunchaku into the air, twirled around on her toes twice, then caught her nunchaku behind her back and flipped them out in front of her with a flourish, ending in a dramatic pose, with her weapon stretched diagonally across her body.
(Bet no one else in town coulda done that.)
She held the pose and looked around, wondering if maybe some little kid had seen her performance and had been impressed, but the handful of citizens that were out on the bridge were occupied with their own tasks—mostly fishing and the like. Selphie sighed and continued walking, spinning her nunchaku idly.
"You thought it was cool, right, Irv?" she asked the empty air beside her. She frowned and realized that she'd done it again.
(Well… he woulda thought it was cool…)
(… If he was here.)
Why'd he have to leave? And why did he have to be in such a bad mood when he left? Selphie shook those thoughts out of her head. Now was not the time to be dwelling on that. After all, she told herself, Irvine wasn't gone forever. He had just left to go fetch SeeD and bring them back to FH. Soon, he would be back and all her friends would be together again. Perhaps they could throw a reunion party. Turn the stadium into a concert arena like they had done before and really celebrate.
(That'd be cool.)
Still, she would have liked to have had someone to talk to in the meantime. Here she was, stuck in a town full of people who disparaged her life choices. Who hated the organization she worked for. Who couldn't even understand her perspective, her side of the issue. She was alone in a town and completely without friends or allies for the first time that she could remember.
She tried to think about possible plans to save FH, but nothing came to mind. After another trip across town, she finally reached the decision that there was nothing she could do to prepare. Her best option was to sit and wait for Garden to come back and hope that the Galbadians didn't attack before then.
She arrived at the far western edge of the city, near where she and Irvine had encountered Fujin and Raijin. The Galbadian army car was now long gone, and Fujin and Raijin were somewhere else entirely. Maybe they'd gone east to Esthar, or back west to Galbadia. Maybe they were still in town somewhere, hiding for the time being. She had no idea, and no desire to find out.
She scanned the horizon in all directions, hoping to find it empty of Galbadians. There were a few fishing boats cruising through the waves, with lines and nets cast out into the sea, or pulling in traps from the bottom of the ocean, but nothing unusual.
(Maybe the G-Army isn't going to attack here at all.)
That was a pleasant thought. After all, why would they care about this tiny, peaceful city in the middle of the ocean? If they really wanted a fight with Esthar—and the news reports Selphie had been reading seemed to indicate that that's indeed what they wanted—then why bother wasting time in FH? Best to just go around and focus their efforts on their intended target.
(But then they'd go and fight all the people in Esthar.)
(Like Sir Laguna, Kiros, and Ward.)
She frowned. So maybe it wasn't such a pleasant thought after all. It seemed the Galbadians were dead-set on starting a fight, which meant that someone had to stop them. But as Selphie thought about the situation to herself, she realized she didn't really want anyone to stand up to the Galbadians. Not that she was okay with letting the Galbadians have their way, but she just didn't want to see anyone else get hurt.
Was it too much to ask for the Galbadians to just give up and go home? Melt down all their rifles and turn them into shovels and grow corn in the Great Plains of Galbadia? Turn their robots into expensive scarecrows and live off the land?
Yes, that was definitely asking too much, she decided.
(I've spent too much time in FH.)
(I'm turnin' into a pacifist.)
She looked down at her nunchaku and wondered to herself. Could she do it? Could she throw her weapons into the sea, disconnect from her GF, and live a peaceful life in Fisherman's Horizon—fighting no one, harming nothing?
She considered this for a whole five seconds before she shook her head. However appealing that lifestyle might seem, it was fundamentally impossible. As Irvine had said—or, at least, he had said something very similar—the world was full of monsters, and there needed to be people willing to fight those monsters. Of course she would like to see a world where her weapons were unnecessary, but that was not the world she was currently living in. And as long as she was needed to fight, then she would fight. Maybe not gladly fight, but willingly fight, sure.
Her eyes turned to the north, completing their circular scan around the horizon. She was just about to turn and continue her patrol route when an unusually large ship caught her eye. She froze and squinted. The afternoon sun was intense, so she shielded her eyes with one hand to get a better view.
It definitely wasn't a fishing ship, and that made Selphie nervous. Her first thought was that the Galbadian attack had begun, but after a moment, she noticed that the ship she was watching was much too tall. Much too tall and much too blue.
"Garden!" she yelled, startling a few FH citizens nearby. They glared at her for a moment, then returned to their work.
(Well, that was fast.)
Garden must have already been in the area when Irvine and White SeeD departed from FH. Who knows, maybe Garden was heading for FH anyway, and there was never any need for Selphie and Irvine to do anything but wait. Whatever the case, she was glad that Garden was on its way. Finally, her long-overdue reunion with SeeD, Squall, Irvine, and everyone else had arrived.
She dashed down the Horizon Bridge, keeping her eyes focused on Garden. There were a couple of possible spots where Garden could try to dock with FH, and she wanted to be on the scene the moment the school arrived.
(I'm the welcome wagon!)
('Cause it's not like anyone else here is gonna be happy to see SeeD.)
As Garden drew closer, it became more obvious as to where they were heading. To the northeast of the city there was a large silo sticking out of the ocean with a network of walkways extending from it. There were no other silos or buildings or docks nearby, which gave Garden the room it needed to squeeze into the city without bumping into anything. Selphie determined the shortest route to that silo in her mind and then continued running.
The school popped into and out of sight behind structures as she ran down the tracks. She hopped onto the city's sprawling network of rusty walkways. As she drew nearer to her destination, she noticed that there was something wrong with the shape of the school. It was too big around the bottom, as if it had recently had a massive section added to it.
She slowed to a jog, trying to figure out what was attached to the school, but she couldn't see it well from that distance. It was like a landing platform of some kind. A miniature airport base attached to Garden. She shrugged to herself as she ran and picked up her pace.
(I'll see it when I see it.)
She arrived at the silo several minutes ahead of Garden. She dashed around one of the outer walkways and stood waiting for the school like an anxious puppy expecting its owners to return. When the school got closer, she began waving her hands in the air and jumping up and down.
"HIIIIIIIIIII!" Selphie yelled. No one yelled anything back, but that was okay. She was comfortable being the most cheerful person in any given situation.
Eventually she was able to see that the mystery object attached to the school was some sort of flat disk. The object was connected to the school by a complicated series of ropes, metal rods, steel girders, and random scraps of metal. It looked ugly, but Selphie was curious to know the story behind the addition.
(Maybe they got in a fight with pirates.)
Were there still pirates in the world? Selphie wasn't sure. But if anyone was likely to get into a fight with pirates, it would be SeeD.
Garden and its new attachment pulled up alongside Selphie's silo, spraying up salty ocean water towards the city. Selphie continued to grin and wave her arms as the school's second floor balcony—the most convenient entrance and exit while Garden was at sea—lined up with the walkway. The school drifted to a stop with precision, leaving a small gap between the balcony railing and the walkway that Selphie could have easily jumped across. She even considered jumping for a moment, but then the balcony door slid open and people began streaming out.
"Hey!" Selphie yelled, but no one was paying attention. A cluster of about a half dozen or more students had assembled on the balcony. Selphie recognized Quistis and the headmaster in the group, but the others were all strangers to her.
"Hey, Quistis! Hey, Headmaster!" Selphie yelled. Still, no one listened.
Quistis turned and addressed Cid. "We need to disconnect the Gardens as soon as possible."
"Shouldn't we focus on resolving the issue in the infirmary first?" the headmaster asked.
"We've made it this far without any casualties," Quistis said. "I think we can manage a little longer."
"HEY GUYS!" Selphie yelled. Neither of them looked at her.
Cid frowned, but he nodded. "Right. Anything else?"
"HEY HEY HEY!" Selphie yelled, leaping up and down. Finally, Quistis and Cid turned and looked. Selphie grinned and waved with both hands, her nunchaku still in one fist.
"Oh, Selphie's here," the headmaster said. "It seems one of our problems has conveniently sorted itself out for us."
"Indeed," Quistis said.
"Jeez, guys," Selphie said. She bent over in a pantomime of exhaustion. "I've been yellin' FOREVER and you didn't hear me."
"Sorry, Selphie," Quistis said with a smile. "I was focused on other things."
"Well, focus on me," Selphie said. "Welcome to FH, you guys!"
"Glad to be here," Quistis said.
Cid leaned forward and spoke to Quistis. "I'll go ahead and get everyone started decoupling the Gardens. I'll be keeping an eye on the situation in the infirmary as well. I have my radio on me if you need to contact me."
"Good," Quistis said. "I'll try not to be away too long."
Selphie frowned.
(What situation?)
The two separated, with Quistis walking towards Selphie while Cid began organizing the other SeeDs into groups and delegating tasks. Quistis reached the edge of the balcony and put one boot on the railing. She stepped up onto it and neatly hopped across the gap, landing on the walkway beside Selphie. Immediately, Selphie swallowed Quistis in a crushing embrace.
"URK!" Quistis said, taking a step back in surprise.
"You're back!" Selphie said, still squeezing tightly.
"Yes," Quistis said, her voice strained, "It is good to see you again, Selphie."
Selphie released Quistis and stood beaming at her friend.
"So what's up?" Selphie asked.
"I'm on my way to the mayor's house," Quistis said. "If you want, you can accompany me and we can talk along the way. I must admit, there is much I'd like to know about what has happened to you since we last spoke."
Selphie wondered if maybe she wouldn't rather go back on board Garden and see everyone else again, especially Irvine and Squall and the others. But then she decided that she could hold off on the big reunion for the moment. She, too, had a lot of questions she wanted to ask, and Quistis was one of the best people to get information from. She was smart and articulate—and unlike Squall, she gave full answers to Selphie's questions instead of vague body gestures and one-word replies.
(And I dunno…)
(I kinda don't want to see Irvine right away.)
(I'm still a little mad about how he just up and left me.)
"Sure!" Selphie said. Together, the two of them headed down the walkway back towards the heart of the city.
"So where's Irvine?" Quistis asked as she walked. "It's rare to see the two of you apart."
Selphie frowned.
"Um… didn't he come get you?" Selphie asked.
Quistis shook her head. "We were in communication with him up until a short while ago. We haven't spoken since. I assumed you two were traveling together on the White SeeD ship."
Selphie's heart sank.
(Galbadians.)
"You don't think… something bad happened to him, did you?" Selphie asked.
"I don't think so," Quistis said. "I would think that if he ran afoul of Galbadians, we would have noticed something on the way here. It is my understanding that he wasn't far away from FH when we last spoke."
(Yeah. That's it.)
(They just haven't made it back yet.)
Selphie felt a little more relaxed. And as she relaxed, she began to talk about her adventures since leaving Garden. She wasn't sure what—if anything—Irvine had told Quistis, so Selphie started at the beginning, detailing how G-Garden had come to Trabia Garden, how Irvine and Selphie had fallen for Martine's lie and ended up in Deling City. She mentioned the assassination of General Caraway, and Martine's attempt to secretly send Irvine and Selphie to D-District.
She then detailed their brief stay in Timber, the rescue operation that freed the eight captive SeeDs—which Quistis already knew about, thanks to Irvine. Their flight to FH, how the Galbadians pursued them, and the subsequent battle and Irvine and Selphie's later attempts to protect FH. She unintentionally left out the encounter with Fujin and Raijin. The event was so unimportant to her that it had completely slipped her mind.
"And so yeah, that's about it," Selphie said. "What about you? Tell me! Tell me! What's that thing attached to Garden?"
"That thing," Quistis said, "Is your old school, Trabia Garden."
"WHAT?" Selphie asked. She almost stopped and turned around right then.
Not only everyone from Garden, but everyone from Trabia was all gathered in one spot?
(It's a super-ultra-mega reunion!)
Sensing her thoughts, Quistis said, "If you'd rather go back and speak with them, that's fine. I can handle the mayor on my own."
Selphie chewed her lip. Mayor Dobe was probably not going to be pleased when he found out that two Gardens were now parked in his city. After everything that happened between Irvine, Selphie, and the mayor, she wouldn't be surprised if Dobe locked his door again. And if he did that, then Quistis might knock once politely and then give up. Quistis wouldn't know about the annoying steel pipe trick, which had previously helped open the mayor's door.
So for the sake of diplomacy between FH and SeeD, Selphie decided to accompany Quistis.
(I am an ambassador, after all.)
"Naw, I'll hang with you, Quisty," Selphie said.
"Glad to have you with," Quistis said.
From there, Quistis launched into her own story, which was much longer and more complicated than Selphie's. At the end of it all, Selphie's head was bursting with all this new information.
"Man, you guys have been busy," Selphie said.
"Indeed," Quistis said.
"So is Squall in a coma or something?" Selphie asked. "Like Xu was?"
"I'd like to know the answer to that myself," Quistis said. "But unfortunately, current events have made it difficult for me to hear Rinoa's side of the story. But from what I can gather, no, it's not quite like what happened to Xu. But any more than that, I cannot say."
"And so you're gonna talk to the mayor…" Selphie said, trying to piece together the story, "So that you can convince him to send some FH techs to come help you fix Garden. Only Garden's not broken, because Tomomi fixed it, but you want everyone to think it is broken, so that no one knows that Tomomi fixed it, because you don't want Mireya to know that Tomomi is a sorceress. But Mireya already found out about Tomomi, so now you're going to the mayor just because you said you would before?"
(That's the most complicated thing I've ever heard.)
"Hm, partially true," Quistis said. "But now that Tomomi's secret is out, I'm mostly concerned about meeting with the mayor to explain the situation and hope that there are no hard feelings between us. The ruse with the FH technicians is trivial at this point. I might not even go through with it, to be honest."
"I'm so confused, I might faint," Selphie said with a sigh. Quistis smiled.
"Admittedly, it has been a confusing time," Quistis said. "But if you do pass out, I'll have to leave you here on the tracks. I won't carry you."
"WHAT? Seriously?" Selphie asked.
"I'm joking. Only joking," Quistis said. "Sorry, humor has never been a specialty of mine."
"We'll have to work on that," Selphie said.
And by that time, the two reached the top of the long steps that led down into the stadium. They headed down and crossed the metal floor to the mayor's house. Selphie hopped up onto the porch in one bound, while Quistis took the stairs. Without waiting for Quistis, Selphie banged on the front door.
"OPEN UP! DON'T MAKE ME GET THE PIPE AGAIN!" Selphie shouted.
Quistis gave her a quizzical look. "The pipe?"
"I'll tell ya later," Selphie said. She turned when she heard footsteps approaching from the other side of the door. The mayor pulled open the door and faced Selphie.
"If it is your plan to wage a war of attrition on me with these nonstop visits, then—" the mayor said. He paused when he noticed Quistis. He turned to her, calmed himself, and nodded politely.
"I am sorry," Dobe said. "I didn't realize that there was someone else on my porch."
"Don't be concerned," Quistis said with a wave of her hand.
"You seem familiar," Mayor Dobe said. "Forgive an old man for his poor memory, but who are you again?"
"I am Quistis Trepe, Lieutenant Commander of SeeD," Quistis said.
The mayor sighed. "Ah… SeeD. I see."
"It's not what you think!" Selphie said, trying to explain.
"Please, Selphie," Quistis said. "Let me handle this." She turned to the mayor. "Do you mind if I come in for a moment?"
"Come in," the mayor said. His words and his tone were friendly enough, but Selphie noticed him glance down at the floor as he spoke, as if he was secretly disappointed. Selphie frowned at him, but he barely seemed to acknowledge her.
Quistis and Selphie stepped inside the mayor's entrance room. Dobe closed the door behind him and offered refreshments, but both Selphie and Quistis declined.
"Should we take this business upstairs?" Mayor Dobe asked, nodding towards the steps.
"No need," Quistis said. "This shouldn't take long. First, on behalf of all of SeeD, I would like to formally apologize for our intrusion on your city."
"And how long are you planning on staying this time?" Dobe asked. His eyes were hooded, expressionless, like a condemned man resigned to his fate.
"That depends," Quistis said. She crossed her arms—and for a moment, Selphie thought that she looked like Squall.
(Weird…)
"We only plan to stay long enough to separate our Garden from Trabia's and make a few minor repairs," Quistis said. "But, if you are willing, we also would like to purchase food and supplies from you."
"I'm willing to negotiate," Mayor Dobe said. "But I'm afraid—"
But his next words were utterly drowned out by the nearby explosion. The windows on the first floor shattered, spraying the three with tiny shards of glass that tore little cuts all along Selphie's body. The floor trembled and cracked, books tumbled off the shelves, and the mayor was thrown to his knees. Selphie and Quistis both stumbled into the walls, only barely managing to stay upright.
Quistis was the first to recover her senses. She reached to her belt and unhooked her whip. She made a hand gesture and said something to Selphie, but Selphie's ears were ringing so violently that she couldn't understand a word that was said. Quistis opened the front door, peering outside.
When the initial shock of the explosion wore off, Selphie's training kicked in. She identified the attack as some sort of bomb or missile, which meant a physical attack. She hurriedly cast a protect spell around herself and then around the mayor as well. The mayor was still on his hands and knees, shaking his head—either in confusion or pain, Selphie couldn't tell.
"You hurt?" Selphie shouted. Everything sounded to her like she was underwater.
"COVER!" Quistis yelled, diving away from the doorway and landing face-first on the floor, covering her head. Reflexively, Selphie grabbed the mayor by the shoulders and shoved him into the floor, covering him with her own body.
Another explosion hit nearby, but this one was further away than the first, detonating somewhere near the top edge of the stadium. Selphie heard glass shatter and metal screech as the solar panels shattered and the stadium supports collapsed.
As her hearing gradually returned, Selphie became aware of other, more distant explosions happening all around town. They were growing louder and more frequent, like an approaching thunderstorm.
(We're being bombarded.)
Her stomach did a flip, and her heartbeat quickened. Fighting people and monsters didn't scare her. Not in the way it scared most people. She was too confident in herself, in her training, and in the superiority of her Guardian Force and her magic to feel truly threatened and intimidated by most foes.
But missiles were something that she couldn't fight. Something she couldn't defend against. They fell from the sky suddenly and ignored all her defenses, her augmented abilities, her magic. Missiles were the only things that ever made her feel truly outmatched by her opponent, helpless against her attacker.
Her hands were shaking, but she was the only one in the room aware of that fact. The mayor looked up from beneath Selphie and shouted, "FLO!"
Selphie turned her head, and there was the mayor's wife, standing stunned and bleeding in the stairwell. The old man scrambled out of Selphie's grasp and ran to his wife, wrapping her in a surprisingly fierce embrace and pulling her down to the relative safety of the floor. The explosions continued to rumble across town.
"This is it," Flo said, tears running down her eyes. "It's finally happening."
"We'll be fine," Dobe said. "We'll be alright."
"No," Flo said. "I can feel it. I know."
"That's not true," Dobe said, stroking his wife's hair. "That's not true."
Quistis gripped the mayor's shoulder tightly. "Do you have a basement? A shelter? Anything?"
The mayor shook his head, still holding his wife. "Just the first and second floors."
Another missile hit the stadium, firing a blast of wind through the already shattered windows. More bits of glass and debris hit Selphie, but the worst of it deflected off her shield. Selphie hunched over in a ball, covering her ears and looking around.
(Where do we go?)
According to her training, there was almost nothing they could do. SeeD offered lesson plans for a variety of situations, including appropriate responses to a missile bombardment, but all the classes focused on how to find shelter and how to rapidly distinguish between a safe location and an unsafe location during a missile attack.
Without even having to think about it, Selphie knew that the whole of FH was one giant "unsafe" location. A rickety old town made of rusty scrap metal in the middle of the ocean. No bomb shelters. No underground levels. No thick ceilings. Nothing but flimsy walkways and paper-thin walls as far as she could see.
She knew that they might stand a better chance if they could get underneath the Horizon Bridge, but to do so, they'd have to cross the wide open area of the stadium—with broken glass flying everywhere and missiles dropping every second—then climb the long, exposed steps, and make their way through the city to the nearest section under the bridge. And even then, the bridge offered only minimal protection at best.
(Garden!)
Quistis had the same thought. She was already on the radio to Garden, but instead of asking for support, she was telling Garden to leave without them.
"WHAT?" Selphie yelled. "We'll be trapped!"
Quistis finished her command and clipped the radio back to her belt. "We can't afford to let all of Garden get blown up just to save the two of us. We'll find a way to catch up, don't worry."
But Selphie had her doubts.
"Let's go," Quistis said, standing up and peering through the shattered window frames.
Selphie looked up at the mayor and his wife. They had no training, no preparation. They avoided fights whenever possible and had no idea how to behave in this situation. Leaving them now would be leaving them to die.
(I promised I'd stay…)
Another explosion landed, this time almost right outside the north wall of the house. The explosion buckled the support wall, making that entire side of the house fold on itself, crushed under its own weight. The blast threw Selphie and the others hard into the opposite wall. Selphie's protective spells kept them from being killed outright by the force of the blast, but it still hurt tremendously when Selphie's back snapped hard against the wall, the corner of a bookcase slamming into her hip. She fell from the wall and landed on the floor among the broken glass and debris.
She lay stunned for several seconds. During that time, her brain's self-preservation systems overrode her sense of honor and pride. She couldn't stay. No one could stay. The only option was to run.
(Gotta get out…)
Aching, but not seriously injured, Selphie struggled to her feet, but stayed crouched, to make herself a smaller target. The missiles were landing more and more frequently, and finding their targets with increasing accuracy. The ground rumbled with each successful impact.
(They must be getting closer.)
Selphie took a glance at Quistis to check to see if she was alright, then scrambled to the mayor and his wife. They were both stunned to the point of almost being unconscious, but they were alive. Selphie grabbed the mayor by his shoulders and pulled.
"We gotta go!" she yelled, yanking on the mayor as if she meant to drag him the whole way.
"We'll be fine…" the mayor said in a delirious whisper. "… Go…"
A hand hit Selphie's shoulder hard and squeezed, making her jump. It was Quistis.
"We have to go!" Quistis shouted in Selphie's ear.
"I can't leave them here!" Selphie said.
"Go!" the mayor shouted, slowly emerging out of his stupor. He said something else, but a nearby explosion swallowed his words.
"I won't!" Selphie said. "I said I'd protect you!"
Another missile landed, this one at the top of the stadium, near the where the stairs met with the rest of the city. It wasn't close enough to do any harm to Selphie or the others, but it was close enough to remind her of the dire urgency of the situation.
"Remember what I said," Mayor Dobe said, looking into Selphie's eyes. "This is our home. We can't leave it."
(ARGH!)
"That's stupid!" Selphie yelled. "It's stupid! You're stupid!"
"We don't have time for this!" Quistis shouted. She grabbed Selphie by the arms and dragged her to the front door. Selphie wiggled and protested, but Quistis was determined. She shoved open the door and dragged Selphie out onto the porch.
The porch was twisted from the missile attacks, with wooden planks bent in strange U-shapes, or cracked completely in half. Quistis stepped wrong on a warped plank and stumbled. Her ankle twisted, and she fell forward off the porch, pulling Selphie down with her. Together, the two hit the hard metal floor with a dull thump. Selphie's shoulder landed first and she cried out in pain.
Quistis scrambled to her feet and dragged Selphie to hers. Quistis' rough jerks made Selphie's freshly wounded shoulder throb with every movement.
"Let's go!" Quistis said, gazing up at the stairway in the distance. A trickle of blood was pouring down over her left eye, forcing her to keep that eye closed. Selphie was too dazed to struggle, so she allowed herself to be pulled along towards the stairs, her feet dragging and stumbling across the uneven floor. Her nunchaku were hanging through a loop in her skirt. She stared down at them, wondering when she had done that.
She looked around her as she and Quistis hustled forward. At least four or five craters had formed in the stadium. The blue glass of the solar panels was shattered in those places, revealing the stadium seats and the stone and metalwork underneath the panels. Behind her, the mayor's house looked like a crumbling derelict shack, with the entire north side caving in and the roof shedding shingles all over.
She stared at the house for a couple of seconds, and then she heard a loud whistling sound from above. Some deep part of her psyche understood what that noise meant—even if she herself didn't realize it at the time. She reflexively closed her eyes, just in time for the explosion.
She heard a woosh of air—less than a second's worth—and then everything was engulfed in silence. She was aware that she was no longer standing, but instead flying, tumbling and spinning backwards, her arms and legs flailing loosely about. She kicked out her feet, trying to find the ground, but there was nothing below her but empty sky. She hit something hard and smooth with the side of her head and tumbled, rolling up a slope. She skidded to a stop and lay there, too disoriented to even process what had just happened.
There was no way for her to know if she had blacked out at any point or not. She was vaguely aware that some amount of time had passed between her landing on the smooth surface and when she opened her eyes, but whether that amount of time was one second or fifteen minutes or an hour was impossible for her to tell.
She rolled onto her back. The urgency and the fear had been blasted out of her. She had no desire to run, or get up, or to move at all. She simply stared up at the pale blue sky and watched peaceful, white clouds drift lazily by.
(They're so far away…)
She reached up a hand towards the clouds, even though she knew that she couldn't catch them, and she saw her arm—caked with black filth and streaked with red lines of blood. And that image of herself, of her formerly white skin transformed, was what finally snapped her out of her daze. Memories flooded back to her, as if her soul had suddenly returned to her body after an extended absence.
(FH.)
(Trabia.)
(Garden.)
(SeeD.)
(Galbadia.)
(Ultimecia.)
(Irvine.)
(Quistis.)
(The mayor and his wife.)
"The mayor!" Selphie shouted. She could barely hear herself say it. The feeling of being underwater had returned, but even worse than before. Now it didn't merely sound like she was underwater, her whole body felt like she was at the bottom of a swimming pool. Every movement she made felt sluggish and uncoordinated. Her head was woozy and her eyes never quite focused on anything.
She ignored her problems and stood up. Luckily her boots hadn't been thrown off her feet, and her nunchaku were still safely hooked to a loop on the side of her dress. She couldn't imagine trying to track down her boots and her weapon in her current condition.
Beneath her were the cracked solar panels inside the stadium. Apparently, she'd been blown clear off the metal platform and onto the panels on the side. The central area at the bottom of the stadium was raised up above the solar panels by the height of one average sized person. Selphie scrambled over to the wall and hauled herself up, feeling and hearing the distant rumbles of the ongoing bombardment.
She gasped when she saw what was on the platform. Her surprise almost caused her to lose her grip and fall back down onto the solar panels, but she caught herself at the last moment and pulled herself all the way up.
The house was gone. Or, more accurately, it was no longer in just one place. It was everywhere, in bits and pieces strewn all the way to the upper levels of the stadium. Metal sheets blackened by the explosion flipped around in the breeze. Broken glass crunched under her feet. Wood planks were stacked upon each other haphazardly. Small fires burned like campfires dotted around the stadium. Everything was blackened from fire or brown with dust.
She looked around. "HEY!" she shouted. A nearby explosion shook the ground, making Selphie wobble in place.
She spied movement in the rubble. A pile of charred wood and metal was shuffling around, as if there was someone moving around at the bottom of it. Selphie rushed to the spot and began tearing up chunks of metal and debris to free whoever was down there. She accidentally cut open her hands several times, but she barely noticed.
(I promised I'd save them…)
The person underneath the rubble stopped moving, forcing Selphie to guess the victim's location as she dug the rest of the way down. Memories of excavating Trabia's ruins came back to Selphie's mind, but she pushed them away. After another few seconds, Selphie found the body under the rubble. She threw off a thin metal sheet and rolled the victim over, catching a glimpse of blonde hair.
(Flo.)
Flo looked up at Selphie with unseeing eyes. Her body was cold and lifeless, but she still moved around. She met Selphie's gaze, her eyes filled with a deep, unknowable sadness. She raised one hand.
Her mouth formed the word, "Please," but Selphie heard no sound. Not fully aware of what she was doing, Selphie reached out and took Flo's hand. A charge like a jolt of electricity—but not as painful—passed from Flo to Selphie. Flo's eyes filled with relief and slowly slid closed. Her body went limp and her hand fell out of Selphie's grasp.
Without being told, Selphie knew what had happened. She could feel a new awareness of the world, as if she'd suddenly gained an additional sense, besides her original five. But there was no joy or excitement that came with this knowledge. Selphie felt nothing at all. She kneeled down beside Flo's body and stared at the woman. Selphie's thoughts weren't attached to words or images. Instead, fuzzy, disoriented emotions drifted through her.
(I promised…)
A hand grasped hers and yanked her to her feet. Selphie was like a rag doll, her eyes fixed on Flo and her feet flopping along for balance. She had taken three or four steps before she was able to turn her head and see that once more Quistis was pulling her towards the steps. Selphie looked at Quistis' appearance and gasped.
Quistis' crisp SeeD uniform was torn and ragged. Blood streaked through her hair, turning it a rusty blonde, and her skin looked like she'd been bathing in crude oil.
Quistis hit the bottom of the stairs and began running up. Selphie followed after, keeping her eyes peeled towards the sky, watching for missiles. If there was another one heading straight for them, she at least wanted to know it was coming.
The top of the stairs had been struck by a missile, leaving nothing but a yawning crater between them and the top of the Horizon Bridge. Selphie could look through where the stairs used to be and she could see glimpses of the ocean below.
Selphie hesitated for a moment, but Quistis was would not be deterred. Still holding Selphie's hand, she leapt over the railing and landed on the solar panels on the other side. She tugged Selphie along, and Selphie hopped over the railing and joined her. Together, they climbed up the solar panels—which were slick and steep—until they reached the railing on the side of the Horizon Bridge. Quistis vaulted this easily and Selphie followed after, her boots hitting the familiar railroad tracks.
Quistis paused a moment and looked at Selphie with concern. "You alright?" she asked.
(No.)
But Selphie nodded.
Quistis nodded back and proceeded to run east along the tracks, heading back towards where they had left Garden. Selphie got pulled along behind her, as Quistis refused to release her hand.
Selphie looked back to the west. A massive cluster of Galbadian ships had paused outside the city limits, raining down a steady stream of missiles upon the city. She could see the little black dots fire up from the decks of the ships, hang in the air, then come crashing down with terrific speed, blowing holes in whatever they struck and spewing wreckage in every direction.
Selphie gazed at the city of Fisherman's Horizon. All around were broken walkways, crumbling silos, sinking boats. People were stranded on floating platforms, some had been thrown into the sea and were desperately treading water or clinging to floating debris. A few bodies in the ocean weren't moving at all, but were bobbing face-down in the water. Selphie didn't want to look, but her eyes kept searching for more.
She saw a family of five, a mother, father, and three young children sitting huddled on a narrow walkway high above the ocean. Both ends of the walkway had been blown off, forcing the family to stay right where they were, hunker down, and hope for the best. Selphie felt sick with a mix of pity and righteous anger.
She yanked at her arm, trying to free herself from Quistis' grasp. To turn around and face the Galbadians. She knew it was hopeless, but she wanted the Galbadians to pay. If they were going to take Fisherman's Horizon, they were going to lose something in return.
"Come on!" Quistis shouted. Selphie realized then that her hearing was slowly recovering. Quistis voice was less muffled, less indistinct.
"No," Selphie said. "We have to do something!"
"We can rally at Garden," Quistis said. "Once we catch up to them. Get all of SeeD together and launch a counterattack. But the two of us here can't do anything! Now come on!"
Quistis tugged again, but Selphie planted her feet and yanked. Quistis' grip failed and Selphie broke free. Before the SeeD Commander could argue or try to stop her, Selphie turned and sprinted back to the west, running for the Galbadian boats in the distance.
(What am I doing?)
Her boots pounded on the railroad tracks, and the explosions of the missiles reverberated in her ears.
(I dunno…)
(… But I'm doing something.)
She thought she could hear Quistis behind her, sprinting to catch up and shouting something, but Selphie was too focused on her task to listen. She pumped her arms and clenched her teeth, staring at those Galbadian ships with pure hatred in her eyes.
Without consciously meaning to, a part of her mind reached out and found her Guardian Force, the cool blue energy lurking somewhere in her body. She began to summon as she ran.
Ice crystals formed around her. The sky turned steel gray, and flakes of snow drifted in the air. Selphie could see her breath puffing out in clouds of steam as she ran, and the hair on her arms stood up as the temperature fell. The metal rails on the train tracks grew slick with frost.
Selphie ran until she was alongside the nearest of the Galbadian ships, then she came skidding to a stop. Quistis appeared beside her and grabbed her shoulders, trying to yank her away. G-Soldiers on the ships noticed the pair and began to open fire, but they were too far away to make accurate shots. Bullets pinged off the side of the Horizon Bridge and whizzed past Selphie's head, but she paid them no attention.
(They're gonna PAY!)
And just then, the summon spell completed. A block of ice twice Selphie's size condensed behind her. Inside, like a frozen artifact, was the GF Shiva, encased in her frozen tomb. Shiva's eyes snapped open and she broke out of her frosty prison with an effortless flick of her head. Chunks of ice flew on all directions, plummeting off the side of the bridge and splashing in the water below.
Ordinarily, this was the point where Shiva would summon up a ball of pure, frozen ice and spray it at her foes, burying them in temperatures so frigid that few living things could bear it. Once the summon was completed, Shiva would vanish and the energies would have to be collected again from scratch.
But Selphie was aware of a new power within her. A new connection between herself and her GF. She could feel something, almost like an invisible wire connecting her with Shiva, and linking them in a deeper, more meaningful way than before.
(Is it because of the sorceress powers?)
Not fully sure of what she was doing—or what she was trying to do—Selphie reached back and took Shiva's outstretched hand. The two joined together. At once, Selphie felt like her blood had been drained and replaced with ice water. But she felt no chill. Rather, the rest of the world suddenly felt unbearably hot. She wished for an air conditioner and a cold drink. She longed for the frozen mountains of Trabia in wintertime.
"Selphie?" Quistis said, her voice rising with concern. But Selphie could barely hear her, and refused to acknowledge her. Selphie had linked to her summon in a way she had never thought possible, and her body was singing with an ecstatic joy and fury she had never felt before.
Together as one, both Selphie and Shiva raised one hand—keeping their other hands clasped to each other—and focused on the nearest ship. A blizzard emerged from the pair that had never before been seen on the planet. No natural storm could possibly rival the fury of the attack. Snow and hail and sleet came down in a wave from the sky, turning the Horizon Bridge into a blinding wall of white.
As the frozen air hit the ocean, the ocean froze on the surface, like it was nothing more than a shallow puddle in the middle of winter. The ice blast worked its way to the nearest Galbadian ship and then completely enveloped it, burying it in a tomb of ice as thick as Selphie's arm was long.
And the blast kept going. It swallowed the first ship and all its crew and then traveled to the next behind it, and then the next. Soon, Selphie and Shiva's combined attack had engulfed a line of five consecutive ships, silencing their missile attacks and completely destroying each one. The G-Soldiers on the decks were frozen mid-stride, like ice sculptures.
(More!)
(MORE!)
But Selphie could feel the edges of her endurance creeping up to meet her. She fought to increase the strength of the storm, to swallow more and more ships—the whole G-Navy, if she could—but her energy could not match her fury. Soon the storm began to fade, and Selphie's body gave out.
Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she collapsed onto the tracks. Shiva's hand slid from hers, and the GF dissolved into a puff of snowflakes that drifted along the breeze and melted in the sky, becoming a light mist. The ice on the ocean began to crack and break apart, but the ships remained frozen.
"Selphie!" Quistis said. She knelt beside her friend and shook her. "Selphie? Are you okay?"
"Did you see that?" Selphie asked, awed by her own actions. "I kicked ass."
"How did you do that?" Quistis said. "I've never seen a GF unleash such power…"
"Dunno," Selphie said dreamily. "But it was cool. Wanna do it again."
"We need to get out of here," Quistis said. She grabbed Selphie's arm and slung it over her shoulders, lifting Selphie up and carrying her back to the east.
"Nooooo," Selphie moaned. "Just… gimme a sec to recharge. I can blast 'em again. You'll see."
She didn't doubt it either. Already, she could feel her strength returning. She wasn't quite ready for another full attack, but she felt her energy returning, more and more each passing second.
(I can take 'em all down.)
(I can stop the attack.)
Something tickled in the back of Selphie's mind. A premonition that pulled her out of her exhausted stupor. A moment later, she heard a familiar whistling noise, like the one that had preceded the destruction of the mayor's house.
Unthinking, Selphie wrapped both arms around Quistis' body and imagined the biggest, thickest shield she could envision. The missile hit a split second later, throwing the pair off the bridge.
Once more, Selphie was flying, tumbling, directionless. But she kept both arms wrapped around Quistis and squeezed her eyes shut.
The water at the bottom of the bridge hit her like a concrete wall, but her shield once again saved them from the worst of it. At that moment, Selphie's strength gave out and she lost both her grip on Quistis and her grip on the shield. Together, they both bobbed back up to the surface, taking a deep breath of air and thrashing about in the water. Selphie came up to the surface, barely kicking or swimming at all, instead letting herself float limply in the ocean.
"You…" Selphie swallowed some ocean water and coughed. "You okay?"
"Yes," Quistis said.
"Well now what?" Selphie asked. A large wave came and picked them up. Selphie swallowed more bitter ocean water and coughed and gagged.
"I don't know," Quistis said when the wave passed.
A rope splashed down on the water beside Selphie. At first, she thought it was just another piece of debris blown up during the attack. But then she heard a familiar voice—with a familiar accent—shout, "Grab the rope!"
Selphie turned in place and saw the White SeeD ship approaching them. Irvine had cast out a long rope and was holding the other end of it. Selphie grinned.
"HEY IRVY!" she yelled, then swam to the rope.
"Hurry!" Irvine said. "They're right behind us."
Selphie and Quistis swam to the rope as quick as they could, then grabbed hold. Irvine and several other White SeeDs hauled on the line, dragging the two women quickly through the water. Selphie bumped hard into the hull of the ship, then was pulled up and out of the ocean, her legs dangling in space for a few seconds. She and Quistis cleared the railing of the ship, and then strong hands gripped her and Quistis and pulled them both aboard.
Soaking and coughing, Selphie stretched out on her back on the deck of the ship. Quistis kneeled beside her, rubbing the water off her face and eyes. Selphie's eyelids drooped and she realized that she was far, far more tired than she had originally thought back on the Horizon Bridge.
"Go! Go! Go!" a White SeeD yelled, and the ship immediately took off.
"How did you find us?" Quistis asked.
"I saw Shiva and I knew Selphie musta been nearby," Irvine said. "That was a hell of a summon you did, Selph."
"Yeah," Selphie said with a grin.
(It sure was.)
She closed her eyes and fell asleep on the deck of the ship.