LA VITA NUOVA

CHAPTER 4:

TRAINS OF THOUGHT

Mateus looked around the tomb with some satisfaction. Blonde hair framed cruel, refined features. "To think, the Tomb of the Unknown King had a GF, well, two GFs guarding it. And now, they are mine," he murmured to himself. The leader of the Strangling Figs was alone in the tomb chamber itself, and he almost enjoyed hearing his resonant, cultured voice echo.

Mateus was the son of the mayor of Timber. But the invasion of Galbadia had changed all that. His father had died during the invasion, and his mother lingered for a long time on life support in a hospital. Mateus had gone through the motions of trying to be there for her, until she died a few years ago. His anger at Galbadia, bubbling away beneath the surface, finally burst forth, and angered at the impotence of the other so-called resistance groups of Timber (which were more like social clubs than serious revolutionaries), he decided to found his own movement. The Strangling Figs.

While exploring the Tomb of the Unknown King, Mateus and the Strangling Figs had encountered a massive GF with horns. They had fought it off, and Mateus decided to pursue and engage it alone. He already had one GF junctioned, Ramuh, but having another wouldn't hurt. He managed to defeat the two GFs he had found in here, Sacred and Minotaur, with relative ease. A Float spell helped him avoid the Earth-based attacks. And now, they had bowed to his will.

He heard footsteps approaching. "Boss," came the familiar growl of the squat Borghen. He had been the bodyguard of his father, but the now forty-something man was now his lieutenant. "We're bringing the equipment and the Sorceress in now. Lamia is with her."

Mateus grinned. Lamia was his girlfriend, and a very capable spy and assassin. "Good. The Galbadians may hesitate to attack Timber, thinking we will use the Sorceress against them. They shouldn't know that we've shifted to this place, so that we can launch an attack on Deling City itself. They will learn to rue the day they did so to Timber."

Borghen cleared his throat. "Be that as it may, boss, but we've got a problem. We sent someone back to make sure Minwu was dead. But he's been found. He's still alive."

Mateus scowled, before he said, "Annoying though that is, it's not a serious issue. He wouldn't dare tell the Galbadians."

"We managed to intercept a series of messages he sent…to Winhill. Hyne's Shield already had a copy of the declaration we sent to that traitor Watts, but Minwu managed to get in contact with Watts. Hyne's Shield knows where we are."

Mateus, after a moment's thought, scoffed. "So? Even if that treacherous whore Heartilly comes, she can't prevail against the Sorceress we have, along with the GFs. She's no fighter, just a loud-mouthed slattern who doesn't understand her place. She may have more spirit than those cowards Zone and Watts, but that's not saying much. She lacks conviction. In fact, if we subdue her rather than kill her, and then put her under the control of an Odine bangle…we might have another weapon to use against Galbadia." Mateus chuckled. "Oh, the beautiful irony: General Fury Caraway, destroyed by his own Sorceress slut of a daughter." Turning to Borghen, he said, "Monitor communications in Galbadia from our hacked feed. Minwu may have known that we were moving here, but he didn't know the whole plan."

"Speaking of which, we've tested the fascination spells on some of our men. Results are promising. The Sorceress can, by Lamia's estimates, influence the entire populace of Deling City and not break a sweat. She can cause riots in Deling City, or inspire an actual popular uprising. There's some who are resistant to our control."

"Can she influence one of Deling's aides? Someone close to the man?" Mateus then frowned. "Ugh, what am I saying? Deling detests having aides near him all the time. That being said, there'd have to be someone who could get close to him. A mistress, perhaps, or one of his military advisors. Perhaps General Caraway himself. Paranoid though Deling is, even he has weaknesses. Or…maybe a better option may be to use his vaunted Missile Bases against him. Yes…yes, that is it! We'll find a way to have someone fire missiles at Deling City, wipe it off the face of the world! And we could do so by influencing someone within Deling City, someone who can authorise it. Or maybe we'll have to find someone within the Missile Base. Tell Lamia I want details of every Missile Base and their personnel. Then, perhaps we can have front-row seats to Deling City being reduced to rubble."

Squall and Rinoa were seated in the special SeeD carriage of the train to Deling City, the latter hoping that Angelo, whom she had left behind, would be well looked after. Rinoa, though reluctant to work with a SeeD, was nonetheless curious despite herself. "I presume you were an orphan," she asked.

"So I am told. I didn't even know of my parents until Edea told me," Squall said. "Why do you ask?"

"I consider SeeD and Garden to be my enemy. You, of all people, should know the phrase 'know thy enemy'," Rinoa said. "Not that I intend to attack Garden and SeeD through military means. I mean, you are a military academy after all, and that would be stupid, as well as lending credence to my enemies."

"Ah. Grassroots movement and propaganda."

"Propaganda is such a strong word. I prefer education, especially as one of the worst enemies of any Sorceress is ignorance. Not all Sorceresses are like Adel. But too often, they are treated as being as bad as she was. We may sometimes look unearthly…" She looked at him pointedly with her eyes, with the golden ring in the centre of her dark irises. "But that is not a sign of evil."

"If you say so."

Rinoa scowled slightly. "And what is your opinion on the matter?"

"My mission is to assist you," Squall replied. "My opinion doesn't come into it."

Rinoa scoffed. "An obedient little clockwork soldier. So if Garden ordered you to kill me, would you do it?"

"Once I confirmed the veracity of the order, I would," Squall said. "I am a mercenary. A soldier. And a soldier is supposed to follow orders."

Rinoa gave a jaunty, sarcastic salute. "So, what? If your commander told you to kill every last Sorceress in the world, would you do it?"

She was pleased to see that the question made him uncomfortable. After a moment, he said, "Edea's Headmaster Cid's wife. He'd never order such a thing."

"I am speaking hypothetically of a commanding officer who would have no trouble ordering genocide. Could you carry it out? Well? Come on, I'm waiting, Squall."

His face twisted into a scowl. "Can we focus on the mission instead? I don't like being asked irrelevant questions."

"How is asking you about how you view Sorceresses, and how you would deal with killing them, irrelevant?" Rinoa demanded. "You are here to assist me with the operation of Hyne's Shield. Sometimes, that will mean a mission like this. And I want to know how committed you are to making sure not only I stay safe, but also my fellow Sorceresses!"

"I'm here because I was sent here, nothing more or less," Squall said, his expression darkened. "Whatever your goals are in the end are none of my business. I will help you as long as I am assigned to you."

Rinoa snorted. "The best I can hope for from a coin-operated clockwork soldier." She was pleased to see a flash of annoyance, even anger in his expression.

But then, she realised, this was the person who was supposed to protect her (not that she truly needed that), and pissing him off might not go down so well. In a more conciliatory tone, she asked, "Do you have any friends?"

"No." The single syllable response held a certain finality to it.

"Bitter enemies? Rivals?"

"…I do have a self-proclaimed rival. Seifer Almasy. He's a gunblade expert like me. He also delights in roping me into 'training duels'," Squall admitted. "I also have at least two people wanting to befriend me against my will. My newest instructor, Quistis Trepe, and a loud martial arts expert by the name of Zell Dincht. Instructor Trepe is a good instructor, but she tries to be friendly to me when I don't want her to. And Zell is a pain. Skilled, but a pain."

"…You don't really like anyone much, do you? What about Ellone? She seemed to know you."

"We knew each other when I was a kid," Squall said. "She left all of a sudden. She was like a big sister to us. Even now, I can barely remember the rest of us. There was this energetic girl called Selphie, and this other kid called Irvine. I only remember them now because Edea told me."

"That'd be the GFs," Rinoa remarked. "I have no need to junction GFs to use Para-Magic or Sorceress power, and frankly, given what happens to the memory…"

"Those are just rumours put about by detractors against Garden," Squall said.

"There are actually scientific papers, including some from Esthar. Doctor Odine himself wrote at least two monographs on the subject," Rinoa pointed out. "Garden suppresses and discredits them because they don't want to lose the military advantage of a Guardian Force. Of course, a Sorceress, if they are in full command of their powers, can summon GFs without junctioning them." She smiled. "Actually, I discovered once that I can even create GFs. Perhaps it's even a gift of the Sorceress normally, but most don't know how to use it."

"What do you mean, create GFs?" Squall asked. "I thought they were monsters of a particular type in the world whom you could summon."

"Of course, though under the right circumstances, you can summon Chocobos, Moogles, Moombas, even a Tonberry or a Cactuar." She frowned, as she looked at the gunblade with the engraved lion emblem on it. "As an example, that emblem there, what is it?"

"That?" Squall asked. After a moment, he said, "It's a lion. I have the same symbol on a necklace, along with a ring. It's been a favourite of mine, since I learned what my last name meant. Leonhart, or Lion Heart. There's even a gunblade out there called the Lion Heart, the most powerful known gunblade. So once I saved up enough money from being a SeeD cadet, I commissioned these, to make the gunblade my own. I even gave the lion a name: Griever."

Rinoa nodded, approving despite herself. "If you wished, I could create a GF like Griever. I've begun creating GFs based on dreams that I had."

"Are these the dreams Edea told me of? Of a future where SeeD hunts all Sorcresses?"

"…Yes," Rinoa admitted.

After a moment, Squall said, "Dreams are not the future. What matters is the present. What matters is the now. And you are passionate about your cause, I'll give you that."

"That sounds like high praise coming from you," Rinoa said with a sardonic smirk.

"…Whatever," was his only response. At least for a few uncomfortable minutes. Then, he asked, "From Deling City, where do we go?"

"I intend to stop by the home of my father," Rinoa admitted reluctantly. "After all, my intention is to rescue Jessie. Any members of the Strangling Figs who survive, I will give into the custody of the Galbadians. The Timber groups won't be happy, but they'll be glad that the Strangling Figs are out of the picture, given that at least the Timber resistance knows something of the meaning of discretion and subtlety. Even if they don't know how to fight the Galbadians properly."

"You don't think much of them," Squall said.

Rinoa snorted. "The most active of them tried to recruit Zone and Watts, along with myself, in some harebrained scheme to spread Malboro juice around the local barracks. You tell me."

Squall, despite his usually stoic façade, actually smirked at that. "You're kidding me."

"Sadly, no. And that was their best scheme. The problem is, doing much more than that might provoke the G-Army into crushing Timber. I think many of the resistance movements know this. They generally pass the time by pranking the local Galbadian soldiers and general civil disobedience. Then again, Zone and Watts' parents were key members of the resistance shortly after Timber was first conquered. They were shot right in front of their sons. Legend has it that Deling merely shot their corpses to make a point, but he actually killed them himself, surprisingly. Ironically, that incident caused more desertions and resignations from the G-Army than causing more resistance in Timber." She looked at the magazine near Squall's hand, and muttered, "Speak of the devil…"

"What?"

"That looks like the Timber Maniacs Laguna Loire special," Rinoa muttered. "My mother knew him once. He had a bit of an infatuation with her, and she actually wrote Eyes on Me based on Laguna. But he disappeared during a mission to investigate the Esthar army's activities. He later ended up in Winhill, and lived for a time in the very house I run Hyne's Shield from after resigning from the G-Army. Actually, the Timber Maniacs publishing house is considering publishing a magazine for Hyne's Shield. Zone's currently compiling it. You know, I wish I met Laguna. He's an excellent writer, and I reckon he would have done great for Hyne's Shield."

"Maybe, but there's times when what he writes about makes him out to be an idiot," Squall said.

On his annual visit to inspect, via spacewalk, Adel's Tomb, up in orbit, Laguna Loire, President of Esthar, sneezed twice. The noise was deafening in the spacesuit helmet, and he found, much to his dismay, snot smeared all over the inside of the helmet, where he would find it impossible to clean off. "Oh, no…" he groaned loudly.

Any further discussion on the matter of Laguna Loire was ended when the loudspeaker crackled into life. "Next stop, Deling City Station. Repeat, next stop, Deling City Station. This train terminates at this station. All passengers must disembark. If you need to go to another stop, please transfer to the appropriate train…"

Rinoa sighed, getting to her feet. She was not looking forward to this meeting. Even so, she knew she couldn't stop the Strangling Figs alone, or at least not ensure that they were cleaned up after she was done with them…

CHAPTER 4 ANNOTATIONS:

Here's the latest chapter for this story. Hope you enjoy it. I was originally going to have Rinoa meet with her father in this chapter, but the train sequences took over, and helps establish Rinoa and Squall's conflicting characters, as well as laying the foundations for both development, and the romance. I also hope you liked the little bit with Laguna.

Now, regarding the Strangling Figs, I took their names from antagonists from Final Fantasy II, avoiding Leon (to avoid confusion with Squall Leonhart, obviously). I also didn't think about what their plan was until this chapter, and frankly, I don't think they did either. But they're good at thinking them up, and the fascination spell mentioned is a brainwashing spell Edea uses on the Galbadian public at the end of the first disc when she assassinates Deling (this is only implied in the game: it's confirmed by the Ultimania).

Now, I'd like to plug my latest Final Fantasy VIII crossover. It's the first such crossover as far as I know with Neon Genesis Evangelion, it involved Shinji being shipped with a teenaged Ultimecia (set years before her confrontation with Squall and company), and it's called Anchor of Ultimecia. Some of my ardent followers may already have read it, but I'm plugging it anyway.

No numbered annotations this time…