Chapter 64

Sequoia

Sequoia was a city of moderate size, situated on the meandering river that divided the Forested Plains in half. It was by no means cosmopolitan, with a population of just a few hundred thousand, about a third of that of Timber City. Its suburban district backed onto the primary forest, with its commercial and industrial zones centred within a few square miles on the widest part of the river. It was the kind of city that could be explored in a day, though its tourism income had largely benefited the local economy since the annexation, seeing hard working people on breaks from all over the Empire.

Currently, Sequoia was chock full of imperial soldiers, in preparation for the coming push into Dollet. Every single hotel and alternative places of accommodation had been temporarily commandeered by the Empire – at a fair business fair rate, of course, especially after Dollet's rebellion. South of the city saw endless squadrons of Magitek units, which would be spearheading the coming campaign with the loss of most of the Empire's grown Lunarians in Galbadia. There was an ever-moving supply chain from the city to the port town of Elm, with the logistical corps making good use of the country's efficient railway network, personnel carriers bringing more troops in day and night.

It was through the suburbs that Leo and Mitsuhide returned to the inner city after their return saunter through the forest. There was no curfew, as such, though even the outskirts were filled with soldiers staying at private BnBs, on duty and off. As most of the Timberians had unanimously decided to stay indoors, the two of them were challenged a couple of times, though it usually took one look at Mitsuhide's newly re-donned gauntlet and Leo's reunified gunblade and they were apologetically gestured on their way.

As they neared the city centre, one particular Centurion standing outside of an inn approached with information for them. He knew who they were, was alert, and was significantly more sober than his subordinates. When he spoke, it was with the flattened vowels common to northern Esthar – from Mordred, perhaps. He introduced himself as Hadrian.

'The Empress returned sometime this morn, sirs,' he informed them.

Leo could not have known. And after ascertaining that his children had had a fine day at school, Mitsuhide's satphone was on silent in his daysack. There had been no summons from Her Grace.

The Empress had wished to infiltrate Dollet's junta by herself, to assassinate Shawn Argus and smother 'New Sarona' in its cradle, before launching a huge blitzkrieg to retake her rebellious Province. Yet to leave her Knight and her Praetorian Guard where they could not do their jobs defied all reasoning.

Though it was as Leo had thought before, that Ultimecia believed herself to be invincible, that her conquest was foreordained. Leo disagreed. In reality, nothing was foreordained. If the Children of Fate could survive the events of Galbadia, then Ultimecia could be struck down. Sorceress Quistis would have killed her if not for Leo's interference, though Ultimecia had chosen to interpret that as some continuum workaround preventing her premature death, asserting that nothing could change her eventual victory over the Children of Fate.

Mitsuhide had taken out his phone.

'Argus is dead,' he announced.

Leo was not surprised. The junta leader was a career soldier, but not a GF bearer. Ultimecia could have killed Argus with the snap of a finger, and none of the Dolleans could have prevented it.

'The Dragoons have been eliminated, too,' Mitsuhide mentioned.

'Truly?' Leo asked.

Mitsuhide offered him the phone, but Leo waved it away. He already had the facts, and was not interested in reading imperial propaganda. He recalled Ultimecia had wanted Tiamat's magicite before her departure, and in an instant Leo knew why. Dollet had been feeling a surge of national pride with their rapid revolution and the success of A Dragoon's Fate, and killing the new Dragoons with Tiamat's flares would be highly symbolic, if not very callous. With Argus dead, Dollet would crumble, and so would resume the fall of the western continent.

They reached one of Sequoia's prestigious hotels on the riverfront, which Ultimecia had handpicked for their lodgings upon her arrival. Aside from her elite guard, it was reserved for imperial officers, too.

They could see Reinhardt standing in the lobby. While Praetorians always wore ruby armour, the type was usually distinctive of their origins. Gabranth was always covered head-to-toe in a full suit of plating, and Leo had never seen the Judge's face before. Conversely, Lani wore just enough plating to remain decent, wishing to display as many of her painfully earned keloid symbols as possible, as was the trend among Zebalgan females.

Yet Reinhardt had shorn his old getup, now wearing Odin's pale armour, complete with the horned helm. Sleipnir was always summoned physically by his side, standing like a soulless golem – so long as there was enough room to house the eight-legged warhorse. To some extent, this behaviour was understandable. The Trabian highlanders revered Odin; it was in their beliefs that in the event of their deaths, Odin would appear lead them to their interpretation of the Netherworld. Reinhardt was big enough to ride Sleipnir. He was nothing short of a beast, a freak of nature even among his people. In his primal brain, he likely believed he was capable of embodying Odin.

There were no glowering monikers for Reinhardt. He was known simply as the Destroyer. Or the First Praetorian, as he had been; Ialantha being the second. He had been marauding off eastern Centra when Ultimecia had met him, seeking to add the abundancy of pirates to her swelling forces, in order to give her both a fleet and a swifter means of transport. Reinhardt had never known discipline, and could not harbour a single strategic thought. He would have been ill-suited even for service in the marines, and more likely would have beaten to death any who raised their voice to him. This was why Ultimecia had always kept him close.

Reinhardt looked down his oiled, platted beard at Leo as he and Mitsuhide got close, being one of the only men between two timelines that had ever dwarfed him.

'Where the fuck have you two been?' he demanded, with his heavy rhoticity. Then he added, 'The Empress returned at noon! Go and report to her!'

The highlands dialect no longer existed in Leo's world. Even southern Trabia had been become far too cold for habitation. As a consequence, Leo sometimes struggled to understand Reinhardt, between all the dinnaes and the cannaes and the kens. Every word was pure, rough gravel. His voice could not be any lower.

'We have not been summoned,' Leo replied evenly. 'Nor do either of us answer to you, Destroyer.'

Reinhardt looked at them murderously, though Leo and Mitsuhide could have looked calmer.

'You stand there displaying symbols of your gifted power, Reinhardt,' Mitsuhide said, 'yet you were humbled at the Necropolis. Tiamat carried your lame form away like a big babe. The armour of the Pale Rider is not impregnable; Edea's Bloodhound was able cleave it in two! No matter how big one is, find any chink beneath the tasses, and you all topple just the same.'

Mitsuhide had been an officer in the Adel Unit; his derision was purely habitual. The Empress had mended Reinhardt's hamstring after Centra, and that he had been crippled by a woman half his size was a closely guarded secret, one that an unfortunate squaddie had had his head splattered over a bar top for drunkenly referencing. Yet Mitsuhide had been in Centra, and had told Leo the whole of it.

Reinhardt's broad knuckles whitened around his hammer. Any other two individuals, and he may have swung it. His bully instinct, unchanged from childhood, told him he was superior to most men – and certainly all women. Though it was that same instinctual line of thinking that stayed his hand. For the only time in his life, Reinhardt hesitated. He was not confident of his supremacy before these two, the best swordsmen in the Empire.

'Yes, marauder,' Mitsuhide pressed calmly. 'Using your discretion now is perhaps the wisest decision you will ever make. Murasame will not be satiated with just a hamstring; it was birthed from its legend as a talisman of destruction. You would have no legs remaining.'

Reinhardt's seven-foot frame shook like the Tower of Owen rooted at the centre of Gaia's august rage.

'Shut your mouth, little man, lest you want your brains scrambled in with that straw hat!' he growled, his face turning alabaster. 'And that White SeeD bitch was an elder!' he added defensively.

'That she was,' Mitsuhide acknowledged. 'Her name was Celes, endearingly known as the Blonde Buzzard. She was among the first White SeeDs, and we Adels met our match in her squadron at Redwood. She deserved a much more dignified death than the one she got. Alas, she had her throat slit, and then you crushed her skull, meant to finish her off like some cockratice being hurried to slaughter. Celes was also the trusted wielder of an incredibly powerful sword, a weapon that you and General Zebalga deigned to leave behind, and gave White SeeD the means to hold off Major Agricola's forces at Mysidia!'

Reinhardt remained silent now, still quaking with fury. Mitsuhide moved only to stifled a yawn.

'It has been a glorious day,' he reflected, 'and I shall not allow the likes of you to spoil it, Reinhardt. I bid you good night.'

'Sleep with one eye open!' Reinhardt snarled, as Mitsuhide moved for the ground floor suites.

Leo fixed his gaze on Reinhardt's. 'Where is the Empress?'

Reinhardt shrugged, his beetroot face looking as though it were in danger of exploding inside Odin's helm.

'Ah dinnae ken!'

Leo rolled his eyes. Those dialect words seemed to be the highlander's default response to many a question.

As it happened, the Empress and General Zebalga were in a conference room that had been repurposed for planning the Dollet offensive. The room was generic for hotel staff conferences, with a laminate wood oval table and a wall-mounted monitor connected to a computer tower; primitive western technology, but as equally as alien to Leo as most of this world's technology was. They were not using the monitor, though Zebalga was looking at a map on a tablet, moving it along with a stylus. Ultimecia was looking at it intently. It was zoomed to the area that Dollet had claimed their territory now extended to, with the western trilateral agreement.

Ultimecia was wearing her usual scarlet attire, and her raven wings were folded. She did not automatically look up as Leo entered, even when Zebalga gave him the same disdainful look he always did. When she did, there was no warmth or welcoming in those glowing and flecked cat's eyes. This was the longest Leo had gone without seeing her since the day they had met in Trabia. That indifferent look may have torn up a fickle man, but Leo was at peace with his decision.

'What is it, Leo?' she asked simply.

'I was only informed of your return recently, Your Grace,' Leo said. 'I have heard the news. As your Knight, I'm compelled to ascertain your well being. After all, you were behind enemy lines, without any protection, for over a week,' he pointed out.

'Eden was the only protection I needed, Leo,' Ultimecia maintained. 'It was not an infiltration any of you could have aided me with. You and the Twelve cannot change your appearances at will, and I will not lose the gift of metamorphosis for a number of decades. You must remember that I wear my eventual avatar by choice.'

Leo supposed she had a point.

'So, you were able to eliminate Argus and the Dragoons in one fell swoop?' Leo asked. 'I won't ask how you did so, but I will commend you on cutting the Dolleans so deeply, Your Grace.'

Zebalga chuckled with that laboured, low rumble, which cast off the walls of the conference room as he set the tablet down.

'Her Grace gelded him!' he revealed, his filed teeth showing.

Leo's eyes swivelled from Zebalga's black pools, back to the vertical black slits of Ultimecia's. There was no trace of denial in her eyes, nor remorse. It had been an assassination mission from the get-go, but gelding was nothing short of malicious. It was up close and personal. And for what reason, other than to make an example, when she cut have slit Argus' throat just as easily? Furthermore, Leo knew there was only one way it could have happened. She had seduced him.

'I must have rubbed off on Her Grace over the years!' Zebalga added. 'Although flaying would have been preferable.'

Leo was inclined to agree with his first statement. The Empress was not as warped as her future counterpart was fated to become, if the Lionheart had spoken true, but she was unquestionably immoral. She had already committed genocide in Dollet. That had been a horrendous war crime that Leo could not even begin to justify, and another reason why he had broken off what they had had. In an unaltered timeline, her future self had made no such atrocities. The most questionable thing she had done throughout the whole war had been putting the last SeeDs to death at Wilburn, and Leo could empathise with that, to an extent.

'I had actually decided to leave him in that state,' Ultimecia admitted. 'Making Argus a eunuch would have had the same effect as slaying him. His following would have swiftly dropped once word spread, and it would have flattened his ego.' She paused; Leo must have betrayed disapproval in his expression. 'Argus was a very unpleasant and obstinate individual, holding all women in contempt, and his policies would have set Dollean mentality back to the pre-Jadis era!' As she paused again, Leo felt obliged to nod. Just the once. 'Anyroad, the Dolleans shall see the light soon enough! I even spared their new national hero, Aranea Highwind!'

'Then why is Argus dead, Your Grace?' Leo wondered.

'Because the Lioness forced my hand,' she said simply.

Leo's face registered surprise. 'The Lioness was there?'

He had yet to encounter the daughter of Ellone and Raijin, though had heard much of her recent deeds. She was but junctioned with a demi-GF, but those within the imperial forces now mentioned her in the same breath as Dincht and Almasy.

'As were the sons of Xu,' Ultimecia said. 'I should have seen it coming. They made the Children of Sarona's revolution possible. They killed Septimus. Of course, the Dolleans would want their heroes back. For morale. For their expertise. For their GF power.'

Leo had not known those twins were the sons of Xu when he had fought them. He had thought them dead until the one who killed Septimus had been caught on CCTV, and realised Sorceress Rinoa must have nursed them back to health.

'Then I presume that you killed them, but their GFs remain unbound?' he asked.

Ultimecia shook her head. 'I could never kill one of Ellone's children,' she said firmly. 'Moreover, I needed to conserve Eden's power to ensure my exfiltration.'

Leo nodded, deciding not to question her rationale. Zebalga had gone back to the tablet. Running his stylus along a particular section of forested plain, he said, 'I will deploy the Ninth Legion here.'

Leo furrowed his brow, suddenly realising the significance of such a late-night discussion of war plans. Ultimecia wished to strike Dollet while it was still reeling. Possibly even as early as the morning.

'Your assumption would be correct, Leo,' Ultimecia confirmed. 'We march at first light. I intend to push all the way to the Tower of Owen. Jericho is Dollet's main stronghold now, as any forward-thinking ruler would have had it so, all along. It shall be seized within seventy-two hours. From there, we can place an iron wall of Magitek at the Yaulney Canyon, stopping the majority of the Galbadian land army from even reaching the front. As long as we hold Baron, they will not be able to invade Timber from the south, either. All the Galbadians can do is deploy amphibiously, and by the time they get a significant enough force ashore, the Dolleans will have been crushed!'

Krushed.

Blocking a pass as narrow as the Yaulney Canyon was a tried and tested strategy, first employed in Leo's ancestral Almaj when the ambitious Centran Emperor Augustus had tried to take the Knuckles of Gargantua. For almost a year the Sons of Almaj had held those passes, the vast imperial legions unable to break through, having to resort to naval blockades of Almaj itself eventually starving them out. Although fighting under starvation was a part of their training, the Sons could not condemn their women and children to the same fate. Augustus had been so impressed with the Sons' prowess that he had offered the survivors a place in his regular army, as opposed to his auxiliary, when he set his sights on the eastern savannahs of Serengeti.

Galbadia had lost most of their heavy weaponry and air force defending their capital, and for Magitek, holding the Yaulney against their foot soldiers would be child's play. The inevitable arrival of SeeD would throw in complications, though Leo knew Ultimecia's contingency for dealing with them, despite their superior GF numbers. She could augment her soldiers to match their speed and strength, intending to divide and conquer while she dealt with the Children of Fate.

Yet Leo had already drawn Ultimecia's attention to a much swifter endgame. Tomorrow would mark the hundredth anniversary of the Calamity, and would also see the restoration of Centra's monarchy. In Leo's timeline, a restoration had never happened. Ultimecia had defeated Galbadia, and had later pushed her forces all the way through to Winter Island, the shumi unconditionally surrendering to her. She had then tracked down the Uncrowned King in southern Centra, who had symbolically bent the knee on the centenary of the Calamity.

Presently, most of the free GFs were in Centra. In fact, Steiner's coronation would be taking place just miles from where the decisive battle of the Second Sorceress War had taken place. If the Empress was so confident of her victory over the Children of Fate, then why not just challenge SeeD at Lenown Castle? Why not lure them into that same forest, as the Galbadians should have done? It would save hundreds of thousands of lives, and Galbadia and Dollet would both be helpless in the event of SeeD's defeat. The westerners would have no choice but to sue for peace.

Colonel Vlahos had agreed with Leo. Alas, Ultimecia had not been interested. Her Grace had a penchant for the theatrical, wishing to decisively defeat the western armies in the field – something which she had failed to do in Galbadia – and ultimately triumph over SeeD in one fell swoop. She would defeat every last one of her opponents, one after the other, as she had in unchanged history. She refused to take a shortcut. Worse, Zebalga had agreed with her, and that had been that.

Moreover, the wisdom of the venerable Selena Vlahos seemed to count for little, Leo had observed. Neither Ultimecia nor Zebalga had forgiven her 'blunder' with the Stormbringer. Vlahos was not even apart of these plans, placed in Redwood to work with Admiral Ramius and oversee the supply lines from the south and east. She would be commanding the rear guard during the offensive. This was characteristic of Zebalga's contempt for her; the only strong-willed female he had ever been able to tolerate was the Empress herself.

'We march before first light,' Ultimecia said now. 'Memnon, if you will give Leo back the Solomon Ring.'

Leo had spent several days without the Solomon Ring or magicite, and would not have it any other way. The Empress had said she needed Tiamat's magicite for her daring task, and, as Zebalga could not bear to be without GF power, Ultimecia had asked Leo to lend him the Solomon Ring. Quite honestly, Leo had been happy to rid himself of the cursed item.

Now it was time to return it, Zebalga did not acquiesce immediately. Sorceress Adel's ancient ring glinted in the florescent lighting. Taking it from his hand, the General tossed it towards Leo. Not that it was in any danger of freeing Doomtrain, the complex magic Adel had interwoven into it during its forging longstanding. The ring bounced, landing on its side, and rolled to stop at Leo's feet in a tight circle.

Zebalga was smirking contemptuously, waiting. Leo just looked at the ring, then back at the two of them. He had never once asked for a GF, and sparsely summoned one in its physical form.

Pride was everything to Leo, just as crucial as honour. There was absolutely no question of him bending to retrieve that ring. As a child, his father had once thrown his food in the dirt for misremembering a sword drill. Gestahl had been a harsh but effective tutor. Rather than try to salvage his only meal of the day, the juvenile Leo had gone hungry. Being descended from royalty had not made food any less scarce in the future, and he had not been able to eat again until the following evening. His affair with Ultimecia would forever leave him soiled, though Leo would rather die than display any form of weakness again, least of all in front of someone he despised. Even if that meant facing the Children of Fate's retribution without a GF.

Ultimecia knew him too well, by now. With a deft movement of her talon, she levitated the ring so that it hovered in front of Leo's chest.

'Take the Solomon Ring, Leo,' she commanded. 'And wear it.'

'Yes, Your Grace,' he relented. Acceptably, in his mind.

'I trust that you enjoyed your day with Akechi, Leo,' she said, in a dismissive tone. 'Get some rest. I need you in pristine form on the morrow, wearing the ring. You will report to me at 0400.'

'Understood, Your Grace,' Leo said, turning to leave. 'And good night.'

'The mistress dismisses her dog,' Zebalga muttered.

Leo ignored him, wondering if it was treasonous to hope that Tyris Stormbringer would finally have her vengeance in the coming battles.