I had an annoying time writing this chapter, due to constantly writing something, looking at it, erasing it...rinse and repeat. Finally decided on something I liked, and had a much easier time afterwards.

Book I, Part II: Mortal Conflict - The Zodiac Brave Story

Chapter XVI—Risky Business

[March 23, 2152 | Esthar, Residential District, Streets | 8:13 PM]

The streets of Esthar were quiet, testament to the nighttime sky that was just beginning to blanket the city. The occasional car traveled past the figure now driving down one of the residential streets to their destination, but the only sound of note was that of a lone motorcycle making its way through the pristine streets of the city.

Seifer Almasy wouldn't have had it any other way.

It had taken some careful work, but he had arranged a meeting with Katanas DeValle at an informal café in the city to complete the job he was assigned - fearless though he was, Seifer wasn't crazy about the idea of walking into a fully-staffed Garden needlessly. Far too troublesome to bother with, he reasoned, and the DeValle family wasn't known for their abundance of valor. That was just part of the reason he'd assumed Shiro was joking when he had received his orders; he found it hard to believe that someone like Darius would've walked straight into the "heart of the Dragon" for such a proposition.

"Work is work," he muttered to himself as he continued to speed down the increasingly deserted streets of Esthar. Not for the first time, Seifer marveled at how calm Esthar was, the populace generally ignorant to the underworld's intrigues and maneuverings that underpinned society.

He almost felt peaceful.

That is, right before he noticed the ground ahead of him suddenly begin to crack and splinter, sending pieces of the road flying into the air. Seifer quickly hit the brakes on his bike, sending the bike skidding with the screech of rubber on pavement as he slid to a stop just in front of the shattered road. No sooner had he stopped than did the entire section collapse, sending pavement and dirt alike tumbling into a pit that was little more than an open sore in the middle of otherwise pristine pavement.

"The hell...?" he wondered aloud, dismounting from the seat of his bike and stepping around it to peer at the collapsed section of road. It looked like a sinkhole, he noticed, but it seemed too sudden for even that.

Warning bells went off in his mind suddenly, instinct taking over from years of training and combat. Seifer quickly spun around, his white trenchcoat billowing around him as he ripped his gunblade from a sheath at his side - just in time to disperse a Water spell flying at him with a quick swing.

'Great,' he thought, lifting the blade back up to a guarded position as he scanned the area for his attacker - or rather, attackers. 'Just can't get my business done without someone trying to off me lately.'

Sweeping his eyes over the group of four, he assessed them quickly but calmly. On the far left, a lithe man, with white hair, his looks making him appear Estharian in descent. As far as Seifer could tell, he wasn't armed with an obvious weapon. Next in line, an absolute giant of a man, easily six and a half feet tall, with long, brown hair, thick muscles, and what seemed to be a matching, brutish demeanor. He was holding a long spear in his right hand, counter-examining Seifer in kind. Third, a blond-haired female of average height, her arms folded, an air of easy confidence making her stand out a bit more than the others. Seifer noted that she carried a small pair of daggers, one at each side of her waist. Last, and the shortest out the four, was a dark-haired female, her face set into a detached, uncaring frown. Seifer noticed no weapon on her person, similar to the white-haired man.

Seeker, Lancer, Mystique, and Frosty - arguably the four founding members of the Royal Thieves Guild, and all specialists in various forms of Alchemy.

"It appears we're in luck today," the blond female, Mystique, said, looking between her companions. "Not only do we nab ourselves a Holy Stone, we get Seifer Almasy himself as part of the deal."

Seifer knew who and what he was dealing with - the intelligence network of the Green Dragons was vast, after all. The Royal Thieves Guild of Esthar, a band of "artifact-snatching, money-grubbing, common thieves," he'd once heard it said. Currently under the employ of one Zeo Conrad of Esthar, not many people knew about the admittedly small group, but the four standing in front of him were definitely well known in the underworld.

"I would've thought Lancer's little trap would've snared you," Mystique continued, taking a few steps forward towards Seifer. "But, you are Seifer Almasy...you wouldn't be caught in such an obstacle, am I right? Being an ex-SeeD must have its advantages in your particular line of work."

Seifer snorted.

"That type of amateur trick?" Seifer replied, jerking a thumb towards the pit behind him. "Please. I've seen better from common thugs."

Frosty spared a look over at Mystique then, her expression not moving from the detached frown she held.

"Allow me to make him crispy."

"Cutting straight to the chase, are we?" Mystique replied, turning to her fellow Guild member as she spoke. "I suppose that's a good idea...though, I would've rather had some pleasure before the business."

(Play: Neo EXDEATH (Final Fantasy V) - The Black Mages: Darkness and Starlight)

Mystique barely had the chance to finish her sentence before Frosty was on the attack. Pressing her hands to the ground, Frosty watched as a circular wall of fire erupted around the general area, entrapping both Seifer and all four of his attackers within. Her hands rose from the ground an instant later, sending a withering burst of fire towards Seifer. The gunblade-wielder swiftly spun around the burst of magical flame and threw a palm out towards his attacker, sending a Blizzaga spell in her general direction. The ground in front of her shivered suddenly, before rising up into a wall of earth and asphalt that bore the brunt of the paramagical attack. Seifer glanced left, scowling at Lancer, who held both palms up innocently, a smirk on his face.

"Who do you think you're fighting, Seifer?" Mystique asked, smirking as well. "We're not your average group of criminals."

"Fooled me," Seifer replied flatly, retaking his usual fencing-esque battle stance. Mystique's smirk became a scowl as she gestured to Seeker and Lancer, both of whom immediately sprang into action. Red fire flashed around Lancer for a brief moment, the sign of Haste magic cast by Seeker, and Lancer rushed at Seifer with magic-enhanced speed to engage him in close combat. A thrust from the burly Guild member's spear caught nothing but air as Seifer twisted aside, while Seifer's retaliatory stab from Hyperion also met no contact. Lancer followed the attack up immediately with a sweeping slice from his weapon that struck the flat of Hyperion, watching as Seifer shrugged off the strike with his junction-enhanced strength before cutting outwards towards the bigger man's chest. Once again, though, the attack was ineffective as Lancer quickly backed off, lowering the tip of his spear to the ground as he did so.

The ground beneath Seifer shuddered before falling away, the small pit trap appearing near-instantly and almost catching him in its grasp as instinct caused him to leap from his spot...once again towards Lancer, Hyperion flashing out again, managing a shallow cut across the surprised Earth Alchemist's chest. Lancer grunted, raising a hand to the wound on his chest which was beginning to bleed; the injury was far from fatal, he knew, but that didn't stop it from hurting.

Seifer suddenly grunted out of surprise from his standing position, Hyperion's blade dropping to the dirt as he held it - the weapon felt like the weight had suddenly increased several times over in an instant. He strained, lifting the weapon back up with some difficulty, and looked towards the four Guild members to see Seeker's hands glowing with purple energy.

"Like the trick?" Seeker asked Seifer mockingly, grinning. "Bet that weapon's feeling pretty heavy, isn't it?"

Seifer snorted again - he wasn't about to let this group of thieves get the best of him, after all. He had to admit that they had some unusual skills, though. Alchemy wasn't something he'd seen firsthand before, and Gravity-type paramagic wasn't a common skill either.

'Dammit...I don't have time for this crap,' he thought to himself...before pausing as a thought struck 's trademark smirk cut across his face as he felt for the power inside himself and began to draw upon some of it. It would take a minute, he knew, but he also knew that he had enough time to spare. His eyes wandered back to Mystique even as another group of fireballs flew in, courtesy of Frosty; the apparent 'leader' of the group hadn't moved a muscle since the fight began, and he wondered if it was merely overconfidence or something more. Hyperion rose - albeit with more effort - to deflect the fireballs, embers dancing around him and nearly blinding him as they collided with the metal of his blade.

"What's the matter?" he called, yelling at Mystique as Hyperion fell again. "Too scared to bother fighting?"

"Quite the contrary," Mystique countered. "Fighting someone like you is...beneath my station, you might say." Seifer frowned slightly at Mystique's counter-statement...before his lips rose back into a grin.

As green energy rose around Seifer, enveloping him and turning his body ethereal, Mystique suddenly realized that she should've taken the former Sorceress' Knight a tad more seriously.

The surrounding area and sky went completely dark, and everything became quiet. The sound of hundreds of flapping wings suddenly cut through the newfound silence, scores of bats converging upon a single point in the sky before seeming to melt into a ball of solid black matter. From the ball emerged a long, clawed foot, followed by another, as the Guardian Force emerged from the dark substance formed by the bats. A creature most aptly described as an archetypical devil, with a fiendish appearance, horned head, barbed tail, and nearly equal shades of black and red skin, it gave a growl with a mouth full of pointed, razor-sharp teeth as it finished lowering itself from the orb.

Diablos.

Looking down upon the four members of the Royal Thieves Guild with contempt, Diablos raised one clawed hand, the appendage piercing and sinking into the black ball above it. Tendrils of energy flowed from its arm into the ball, and it made as if to throw the orb onto the mortals below. The ball seemed to hang in mid-air momentarily, almost stuck to the clawed arm of the Guardian Force, before it broke loose with a roar and sped towards the dirt, enveloping the entire area and crushing everything within except for Seifer with powerful gravitational force.

Its job done, Diablos flipped in the air, dissolving back into dozens of bats that vanished as the area lightened once again. Seifer's body also returned to the physical plane as the summoned creature returned to its place in his mind, and he spared a look over towards his opponents to see all four of them lying on the ground in agony, the majority of their strength sapped from them by the Guardian Force's powerful skill.

(End: Neo EXDEATH (Final Fantasy V) - The Black Mages: Darkness and Starlight)

"I'd love to stay and kick you guys while you're down, but I've got other places to be. Maybe another time," Seifer said casually, walking back over to his motorcycle and lifting it off the ground from where it had fallen, shaken from its standing position by the fighting. The cops would be here soon to investigate, Seifer knew, and he didn't want to be around in the middle of it. The bike roared to life as Seifer remounted and turned the ignition, and he gunned the engine before tearing down the street towards the meeting place, leaving nothing but a cloud of exhaust and a section of torn and scorched street behind him to mark his passing.

[March 23, 2152 | Esthar, Residential District, Ichiraku's | 8:33 PM]

Seifer pulled into the parking lot of the small Estharian restaurant that was his destination, shutting his bike off and pocketing the key as he glanced at a watch under the sleeve of his trenchcoat.

"Damn...late," he muttered, heading for the door without wasting any time. As relaxed as Seifer was in most things, he hated being late finishing a job - every second wasted was another second in which something could do wrong, after all.

Seifer was greeted with a cheerful 'hello' from an attendant as he entered the restaurant, but he waved it off with no words of his own; he was too occupied with getting this over with. He scanned the tables scattered around the interior of the restaurant, looking for the person he was supposed to meet with...and his eyes narrowed as they did not find that person.

'Did he not show?' Seifer thought, momentarily, scanning back over the gathered patrons...before movement caught his eye. It was subtle and indistinct - or would have been if Seifer hadn't received SeeD training. Seifer knew immediately that the movement was the SeeD signal for 'hold fire, friendly unit.' Quietly, he began to walk towards a table with a single figure seated at it, a man with short, dark hair wearing a black duster over his attire.

"Welcome," Angel said, watching Seifer calmly as he took a seat at the table. Seifer decided to go ahead and cut to the chase.

"You're with DeValle?"

Angel nodded.

"He couldn't make it, so he sent me instead. SeeD Commander's a busy lifestyle, after all."

Seifer chuckled, thinking momentarily of Squall and his job at Balamb Garden.

"Of course. So, you're stuck playing delivery boy for the day, then? Must suck."

"It's not as bad as you think," Angel replied, taking a sip from a glass of water in front of him. "The sights are their own reward."

Seifer nodded to the older man, reaching into his pocket and quietly retrieving the small, indistinct form of the Aries Holy Stone.

"Well, tell the Commander that I'm sorry he couldn't make it," Seifer finally said, placing the Stone on the table in front of Angel. The SeeD quietly picked up the Stone, examining it momentarily, before pocketing it and nodding to Seifer, standing up from his chair.

"Will do," he replied. Seifer gave a short nod in response, and Angel began to walk out of the restaurant without any further hesitation. Seifer gave a short sigh as he relaxed, glad to have that spot of business done with.

'Diplomacy...so boring,' he mused as a waiter began to head in his direction. Despite himself, he smiled - a drink was sounding very good right about now, and he figured that he'd earned it.

[March 23, 2152 | Trabia Garden, Third Floor, Katanas DeValle's Office | 8:34 PM]

Katanas leaned back in his chair, fingers interlaced as he faced the familiar Divine Magus in front of him. Kisara said nothing, her face the picture of calm as she watched Katanas' own face - though he wouldn't say it, he was concerned about the information she had just given him.

"The news you bring is...unexpected, to say the least," Katanas said, not moving from his position. "I assume Lady Freya will give warning before she enacts her plans?"

"Certainly," Kisara replied. "It appears that she has both Lord Odin and Lord Xeios watching Fayt at present, however. I am not sure when she plans to take action, though I expect soon."

Katanas allowed a small smile to creep over his face. "You realize that 'soon' is a much different measurement of time for you than us mortals, of course."

"Of course," the female mage replied. "Fayt must be getting restless, however, for the Mistress to be taking action now.

"She must know, though, that not all of the Planeswalkers are potentially up to a task such as this one," Katanas said, finally deciding to voice one of his concerns. "Fayt is, after all, a Pillar of Reality. What does she believe mortals can do in a situation like this one?"

Kisara hesitated, pondering the question, before shaking her head quietly. "I do not know. She must have a reason, I am sure...but Fayt has made it clear that she has a quarrel with one particular member of this order."

"And she believes that Fayt may extend this to all Planeswalkers..." Katanas murmured, looking down at his desk. "This situation has become quite the problem, hasn't it?"

"Indeed," Kisara agreed with a nod. She had seen much despite being relatively young by Ethereal standards, but she had never believed that one of Freya's own would cause so much trouble.

"She must have some reason to believe Fayt may move again soon," Katanas continued, "else she would not have sent you to watch over the current Planeswalkers."

"Fayt has already moved again since our last talk," Kisara replied, Katanas' face turning to a mild look of surprise. "She attacked the third chosen of both our order and that of Soul Society with a summoned creature in this facility's training center."

"I heard nothing about this," Katanas admitted, showing only mild concern at the information. "I assume they survived, then?"

"They did," Kisara remarked. "The third from Soul Society in particular showed great promise with her newfound abilities."

Katanas smiled upon hearing that - he had seen firsthand that she was a skilled fighter, and had once commented that she seemed the type to pick up any skill more quickly than others.

"I would love to continue this conversation, Katanas, but I must check on the others," Kisara suddenly said, looking over at the SeeD Commander. Katanas waved it off with a hand.

"I understand. Business before all else, after all. You'll be around for a while, then?"

"Until the Mistress deems it fit for me to return."

Katanas smiled softly. "I see. Take care of yourself, Kisara."

"The same to you, Katanas," she replied with a smile, vanishing from the SeeD Commander's sight in an instant and leaving him to his thoughts.

'And so,' the SeeD Commander thought languidly, leaning back into his chair, his lips upturned in an easy smile, 'the game truly begins.'

Obligatory Bleach reference...made. Now that that's out of the way...

The scene with Seifer was definitely where most of my problems came in. I have never seriously written his character before, so that took getting used to, which caused a lot of the "write/edit/erase" loop that I got caught in. Even now, I'm not sure how well I did, but I think it's at least reasonable. As always, please read and review.