Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VIII or its characters.
Author's Note: I'm gonna try to make the chapters longer than I usually make them. Also, I am using spell check but if I miss any 'e's 'q's or spaces, forgive me, those three keys are glitchy…
Sorceress Paradox
Chapter Two: The Chicken or the Egg? SCRAMBLED!
"...We stumbled onto a very scary and very possible connection between the beginning of the Sorceresses and Ultimecia..." When that sentence came out of Rinoa's mouth, everyone stared at the sorceress, stunned. Everyone that is with the exception of Squall and Dr. Odine.
Quistis was even dumbfounded, {Squall told me that Rin had discovered something dangerous relating to Ultimecia,} she glanced at the silent commander, {But I had no idea it would be this…}
Selphie tilted her head, her emerald eyes confused, "Wait Rin, are you sure?' she questioned. "How could Ultimecia, the last Sorceress of all time, be connected to the beginning of all Sorceresses?"
Quistis smiled slightly, the petite brunette had a way with getting to the heart of the matter. As Rinoa smiled at Selphie and began to gather her papers to begin the explanation, Quistis glanced at the other members in the room that were hearing this information for the first time. Xu had an intense look in her eyes staring straight at the sorceress, Quistis knew Xu had a didactic memory and could count on the other lieutenant to remember every minute detail of the coming lecture. Irvine had an equally intense look, leaning forward on the table his arms crossed in front of him. Quistis knew the sharpshooter was intelligent, but often forgot that fact due to his womanizing laid back attitude. Zell, she found, was still reeling from the shock of Rinoa's earlier statement. Quistis sighed, making a mental note to get with the martial artist later to answer any questions he was sure to have.
Her attention was pulled back to Rinoa as the young woman pressed a button on the projection remote, turning on the projector and turning off the lights simultaneously. Rinoa gestured to the first image behind her, a simple image of an egg and a chicken, "As I said, it's related to this fundamental philosophy question. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"
"The chicken of course," Zell interrupted, eliciting groans from either side of him. "I mean, ya know, the chicken cuz it has to lay the egg..."
Quistis rolled her eyes to the ceiling as she sighed, {Here we go…} she thought as she glanced at Squall, who up to this point had shown no emotion but was now covering his face with his hand.
Rinoa, who was used to this type of answer in her classes, just shook her head and smiled, "Where does a chicken come from?" she asked simply.
Zell answered immediately, "An egg…" he paused as he realized what he said contradicted his earlier response. "Oh..."
Rinoa nodded, "Exactly," she clicked the projection remote again, changing the image to that of a woman with the tag 'Sorceress' next to an egg-like blue orb labeled 'Sorceress Power'. "We know that a sorceress gains her powers and abilities through Embodiment, the act of an older sorceress passing on her powers to a younger sorceress."
Rinoa clicked the remote again, this time an image of Hyne appeared. "Also, according to myths sorceresses are descendents of Hyne and therefore not 'human'." Another click, this time an image of herself and her predecessor Edea. Rinoa turned to the small group, "But that's not quite true. I'm obviously human, I was before Edea passed her powers to me, and I still am. The same is true for Edea and Ellone, as well as Adel," Rinoa gestured to Dr. Odine, "All four of us were at one point or another under the care of Dr. Odine."
At this, Irvine muttered under his breath, "Experiments of Dr. O, she means." Quistis elbowed him in the ribs.
Rinoa continued on smoothly, "During those various times Dr. Odine could find nothing in our DNA that even remotely suggested we were anything but human. In fact," another click, this time an image of Selphie and Quistis, "When Edea unconsciously passed on her powers, it could have easily been any of the women there at the time. I was just closest."
Rinoa turned to the group, "Considering this fact, both Dr. Odine and I believe the myth of Hyne creating sorceresses and their powers is largely incorrect, if not outright wrong from the get go." Rinoa paused to let that statement sink in. Rinoa sighed, went to press the remote again but stopped, saying "By taking Hyne out of the equation, we are left with the question, 'where did sorceresses and their power originate?'" With one final click of the remote, an image of Ultimecia appeared. "Our research into this question led us to analyze the various sorceress powers recorded throughout history. The result was that, even though each power was unique to that sorceress, they each fell into a small category based on the primary aspect of those powers. Psychic, Physical, and Elemental. Delving deeper we found that all three categories fell into one large category, Space-Time." Rinoa paused again, taking a deep breath, "We found at the core of each individual power, was the power generated from Time-Compression."
A thick and tense silence enveloped the room as Rinoa finished her lecture, the impact of her words seemingly smothering any and all exclamations and questions for the moment. Quistis was the first to recover, "Are you saying, that Time-Compression created the Sorceresses and their powers?" she asked incredulously.
Dr. Odine, spoke up, "Yez, in a zenze." He stood up and walked over to Rinoa, taking the remote and her place as speaker. "You zee, during Time-Comprezzion, all timez vere together at vonce, in ze zame place; ze past, prezent, and ze future. Ve vere told Ultimecia vas ze only vone who could zurvive in zat vorld." He raised his finger in the air, "But zat vas not ze case, you all vere able to enter Time-Comprezzion and defeat her and return ze vorld to normal. But zat very act, triggered a very large paradox."
The doctor clicked the remote, the image changed to two pictures of the planet, side by side. "As ve all know, during Time-Comprezzion, everyvone on ze planet, from beginning of time to ze last of it, ceazed to exizt, aside from you all and Ultimecia. Zat very act itself should have negated Ultimecia's very existence as vell, being zat novone had ever been born to birth her in ze first place, no other zorcerezz had exizted to pazz on their powerz to her. In fact, ze moment Time-Comprezzion had been achieved, our reality vaz torn apart, destroyed." The enthusiastic doctor didn't give his audience time to swallow that information before continuing on. "Zome of us know zis as fact. If you remember, after the vorld vaz restored, many people reported unuzual symptoms for monthz, from headaches, lozz of memoriez, altered memoriez, and even zome who inzizsted zat their life vaz not how it should be."
His audience nodded; each one of the SeeDs in the room had had some mission relating to those very instances shortly after the Disaster. Quistis' eyes narrowed, understanding starting to dawn on her. {This explains why that young man in Dollet had insisted SeeD investigate his claim that he and his wheelchair-bound sister had been experimented on. He kept saying that he was the one that had been permanently disabled and his sister had been the one with perfectly working legs. At the time, everyone I questioned that knew them confirmed that his sister had always been disabled. Even his sister confirmed it.} Quistis cringed a little inside, thinking now that maybe she had been too hasty in suggesting he be committed.
"My azziztants and I have been studying zeze cases for avhile now and vhen Mizz Heartily came to us viz her zeory, ze peicez started to fall into place," he pointed at the image. "You zee, ve believe zat vhen Time-Comprezzion vas achieved, our vorld, our reality, vas duplicated, to prevent ze paradox." He clicked the remote and the image became animated, showing one world, both images overlaid with the tag 'before Time-Compression' then the two images separated again with the tag 'after Time-Compression.' "Zis explains ze various symptoms experienced aftervards. Our vorld was copied, but like all copiez, it iz not an exact duplicate. Variouz changes, from minute to large, vere made." Another click and the image changed to that of Hyne again, "Among vhich vaz ze myth of Hyne and ze origination of zorcerezzez."
The small doctor was about to continue when Zell interrupted, irritated with the long lecture that seemed to be going in circles, "Ok doc, get to the point!"
Dr. Odine glared at Zell, "Zat iz vhat I am doing!"
Rinoa stood up, "Dr. Odine, let me take over, I'm sure your parched," she said charmingly.
Dr. Odine looked at her, smiled and nodded, "Very vell, you can explain to zem," he said as he took his seat again.
Rinoa cleared her throat, "Well, what the doctor is saying is this, to prevent the paradox from destroying space-time, the world was duplicated. The original world is where Ultimecia comes from, in that world Hyne truly did spawn the sorceresses and their powers. When Ultimecia achieved Time-Compression, our world was created, in effect negating the paradox of Ultimecia having no parents or being unable to inherit her sorceress powers." Seeing the confusion on her audiences' faces, she sighed. Looking around she spied a bowl of fruit. She grabbed an apple and an orange and held them up. "Ok, think of it as this, the original world, the world where Ultimecia is from is the apple. When the Disaster happened, reality warped, and created a new world, our world, the orange. Ultimecia's Time-Compression occurred on our world." She picked up a pen and pierced the apple with the end and the orange with the tip. "We know that to achieve Time-Compression, Ultimecia's consciousness and powers flowed from the future into the present, but it was from her world's future into our world's present." She saw understanding begin to creep into everyone's eyes and nodded, "To make it even more simple, our world is a duplicate, but a duplicate whose history started during the original's present. Therefore the original's future, where Ultimecia is from, was happening at the same time as our present." She paused, waiting for any questions to arise, when none did she continued. "During Time-Compression, Ultimecia's consciousness and powers spread throughout the past, present and future of our world. We know Ultimecia passed on some of her power to Edea in the past, but not all of it. We believe that her powers were passed down to various sorceresses throughout history, starting with the very first sorceress." She clicked the remote one final time, shutting of the projector and bringing back the lights. She concluded the lecture with, "Hence solving the Chicken and the Egg paradox regarding sorceress powers."
Squall, silent up to this point, put the final touches on the discussion with one line, "The scrambled egg came first..."