Filling In The Blanks

A/N: Finally off with the story again :D I'm excited. Now it's the end of May. I just got a couple reviews for way earlier chapters about Elouise being a Mary - Sue, and my OCs being unoriginal. Thank you for being honest, I really appreciate it. Though, I have to say considering I am not a published author, I am not comparable to Twilight, and you don't know what Elouise is because she's not in more than three chapters of the story. The OCs were intentionally boring because their 'perfect' people - that's how they're supposed to be, if you'd like to read on, unknown reviewer. Thanks however for your honest opinion, I take everything into consideration :) At least you took the time to say you didn't like it.

Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy 9 or any of its characters.

Chapter 17: A Rescue Mission

"Are we ready to go?"

The morning mist after the storm of the night was thick above ground. The whole squad had been out in the crisp morning, stretching themselves, and making sure their weapons and supplies were legit, also getting the boat completely ready.

Dagger stood with Vivi on the boarders of the meadow, the decrease of temperature freezing over the grass, making it hard to step on and squish. The icey frost clung to the plants and buildings to sheet them from the world, as though they willed the sun away from the surfaces. So far, chilly clouds had vanquished the sun, slaying it from sight - it looked like it was going to be tough going.

The first quarter inch of the water was frozen over, Nadina and Beatrix were both attempting to unfreeze it. Vivi was so tired - confused and unable to sleep the night before, disturbed by what could have happened to his best friend, therefore he was unable to cast spells to help out. The Tantalus crew was trying to dig through supplies, knowing they had physically lost Blank, even after getting him emotionally back, and losing Zidane all over again.

For once in their lives, they were silent and getting along enough to rummage in peace.

"Do you think he'll be okay?" Vivi's small voice filled the bone chilling air only a short distance around them; everything was so still there wasn't a slight breeze to carry on, it seemed as though the whole world had died.

"Zidane?" She attempted to smile, though she felt as though she could break down into tears at any given moment.

"And Blank..." Vivi corrected himself, his voice still tiny and miserable.

She gazed out over the plains, expecting to see the swaying emerald grass and beautiful azure sky. And yet, there was only a crisp winter feel of everything being dead and abandoned. She fiddled with her hands behind her back, her raven hair framing her face, to hide it from the safe world behind her. Her sparkling eyes had a depth of thought and wonder about what the future would bring. It seemed as though she could only live in the present when she felt like floating - when she was with Zidane... Every other time she had to be a leader... She was forced to think about the future.

She tilted her head downward to look at Vivi. Standing next to him in this state, he looked so small and cold. He was lost, and didn't seem to fit in quite right. Thought it felt normal standing next to him, it didn't seem as though he thought so. His clothes waved when he swayed where he stood, and his habit of pulling down his hat whenever he spoke, or was shy about speaking.

"They'll be alright, Vivi..." She knew it was a very large possibility that those were dry words, but she had to offer some sort of comfort to the mage, no matter how tiny it might have been.

"It's okay..." It's as though he read her thoughts, "I won't make you promise that. I know you can't promise something like that..." He looked up at her, his eyes indicating a smile, though she couldn't see it. They sparkled with a well-masked sadness. "I have to be strong..." It's as though he were answering her unspoken questions again, "Zidane told me that's the best thing to do... Now I have to be strong for him and Blank..." He nodded and looked forward again.

Dagger couldn't help but smile. Perhaps Vivi fit right beside her more than they both realized.

?

"We should have left earlier..." Beatrix mumble, blasting another firega at the water, "This is slowing us down..." Vivi threw sad spells next to her - the chill, nervousness, and anxiousness plowing through him making him a poor canidate of assistance.

"I'm sorry..." He apologized, only to have her tsk him out.

"Do not apologize..." she let on a forced smile she thought perhaps would look real, puffing out some breath that looked as though a fire inside of her was burning, her mouth being the escape for the smoke, "it's not your fault at all."

"Master Vivi! If you see, the evil forest is coming up fast... We're almost there."

"I hope we're not too late..." Freya looked up towards the sky, the sun still unable to pierce through the grey, rolling waves of clouds.

"Any way to move faster?" questioned Steiner, his voice still tense and angry; everyone could tell now being out and about that this was a most troubling thing to have to do.

She shook her head, "It's unfortunate, but I don't believe so..." she took one glance at him, then looked back down at her hands, running over her long weapon, stabbing the ice next to the boat to push it forward, "Remember when we find them Steiner... This is a rescue not a punishment... And remember they are part of our team."

He stuck his nose up in the air and turned to face the bitter cold, away from the safe place they had abandoned for something wreckless and stupid...

Dagger was the only quiet one, minus the Qu sitting next to her, staring at the water, dry thoughts floating about his mind, not really entailing anything of importance, as he didn't understand the situation to the fullest extentd . She sat in the boat, glancing every so often up at the sky to see if snow would had yet to fall. She was sure these powerful spells meant something was going on - this was not normal weather by Dali. Of course, it could be some freak accident, but the ice was hard to melt, the cold intensifying the closer they got to Alexandria, and that meant that something was amiss. Shifting her gaze to meet her gloved hands, balling up into fists she knew that Kuja was angry... Kuja had found something out that he wasn't supposed to find.

Closing her dark eyes, she let her body jerk around with the motion of the boat so unsteadily driving through the water. It would almost be faster to get out and run, but their tracks would be seen then especially in the river. It was better to knock out all of the ice - just so no one was able to track them back.

She wondered in the back of her overflowing mind, how angry she would really be when she saw one of her best friends, and someone she was rather fond of, safe... Or how angry she would be she didn't stop them if they were injured. Shuddering at the thought, the girl forced her eyes open, feeling quick moments where her eyelashes would touch her cheeks when she blinked. It was things like that - the little things - that she kept herself occupied with.

There was so much stress lately, that it seemed as though she couldn't possibly fathom how much was really going on. Before, it had all seemed so surreal, the war. But now, going on rescue missions, and having two dreamers with them, people dying, and fights going on, it seemed so much more in-time... It seemed scarier, and the thought of death seemed to frighten her more than it had before. Dagger didn't want to think about it, but she figured that she had to... Only at the moment, not knowing the fate of a few friends, because of a very little mistake she had made, she couldn't possibly wonder about the future...

It was a time she needed to relax, and focus on things only in about a two feet radius of her, otherwise surely she would explode.

?

"It's so dead..." Beatrix whispered to Freya once they all got out of the boat.

The Bermecian looked around, not a thing in the forest making a sound, but that's not what troubled the woman at all. She took an armored hand, and gestured lightly, so as not to distract the attention of others, towards the water, "Though it is thawed, there is no current."

Freya glanced at the brunette, a fear lighting up her hardly visible eyes. "It is unnatural..." She murmured, pushing the hair from her eyes, only to have the silvery locks fall in front of them again. "I don't understand magic quite like this... It's powerful... I can't get a feel of it."

"That's not a good thing..." Beatrix pushed the boat forward a small bit, then turned around, "A small break for food... Then we need to get a move on."

"Why are we even stopping?" Dagger questioned, collapsing onto a rock and tracing the frost upon it with her finger, before glancing up again, staring straight into the eyes of the older woman, "What if this precious time could be used to save them?"

"We can't be hasty, Dagger," Beatrix answered, in an attempt not to agree with her.

"We haven't done that at all... With our decisions, setting out, moving along the river - everything we've been slow at, and because of that they could be dead." She was close to spatting on the floor, but restrained, reminding herself that it wasn't anyone's fault but Zidane and Blank's that they were in this mess to begin with.

"She has a point..." Out of all people thought to say this, it was Vivi. When all eyes turned on him, he shrank back, looking like a kicked puppy, knowing he was about to get beaten again.

"Explain, please, Master Vivi..." Steiner instructed, attempting to hold his voice as calm as he could.

"I know that what Zidane and Blank did was really wrong, and I know no one is happy about it... But, I thought... I thought that, everyone cared about... at least Blank enough to panic about it... Even if they are angry. I know though, that no one knows the kind of craziness Zidane has had to go through, and even I don't to a certain extent... I just don't want anyone to be so angry about having to go, and endangering the whole resistance, that they don't really want to move as fast as they could... Even if I agree that everyone has a right to be angry..."

It seemed to be the most words Vivi had spoken at all since joining the resistance more than a month ago, and as he turned away, it didn't seem like he wanted to explain any further than that. Of course though, he didn't have to.

Quina looked back and forth between the two. For a while, they didn't even realize he was still with them he had been so silent. But, when it came to sticking up for Zidane, his new found, extremely interesting friend, he had to speak up, even if he didn't really want to get involved in the whole matter. He only wanted food... That was the first and simplest reason he was with the resistance: they gave him good food - Kuja did not. The swamps were swiped clean out, and there were no homes for the Qu's left in the world.

"Vivi speak truth...?" He was unsure quite how he was answering that question, and how the others would take it, but he had to put in his two-sense worth.

Freya shuffled her feet, the first to allow those words to sink in enough to nod, "I agree with Vivi and Quina. I believe we should move. Everyone here has enough adrenaline to move as quick as possible. We've broken into the castle more than once, and who's to say, because we're angry, we can't do it again."

Everyone nodded and slowly started to agree. It seemed as though, if they were any later... Zidane and Blank could die - everyone took Vivi's words to heart. For such a small, shy character, with a role even he didn't know yet, he had powerful words.

?

Once they were in the castle, that didn't even have guards outside anymore, it wasn't hard to track down where their two commrades were. In the end, they really didn't actually have to be very sneaky either. Guards were yelling, swords were clashing, and no one was on alert. The two of them had been figured out, and of course this raged Steiner to a new level.

Everyone was silence as they moved, building a tense atmosphere that was torn down whenever the gurgled, blood-filled scream of someone only halls away echoed through the stone. Finally, they found the room, and bashed the door open, weapons at a ready as they burst in, just in time to see Blank hit down by a soldier. Right away, Beatrix sent a thundra to keep someone from hacking through him to create a bloodier mess than things already were.

Immediately afterward, everyone jumped into action, but it seemed as though the guards became a smidge smarter than the last time they had fought. They kept Dagger busy so she couldn't heal Blank. The funny thing with cures was, that if it was too much of a problem, just a cure couldn't exactly fix everything. That was tough about this situation.

Zidane was truly stunned that they were there. He didn't ever imagine it would have to come to this. Part of him wanted to just flinch at the thought of what was to come after this battle - if perhaps out of anger and rage they would strike him down... But another part of him knew that in fact they were more level headed than that... Well most of them - he wasn't sure about Steiner.

Swiftly he twisted and turned, until he was in front of Blank, defending him with kicks to the guts, and swings of his dagger. A soldier ran behind him, the blonde only warned because of a yell from the redhead, and he whipped around just in time to get slashed in the face with a sword. Immediately blood seaped out of the wound, dripping onto his friend still writhering slightly on the floor. He stumbled back, only to bump into someone else, who happened to be Dagger. Quite frankly, when she whipped around, she hit him hard with her staff, and though she apologized quickly, he thought somewhat she meant to do it.

He allowed it to roll off his shoulder as he kicked off of his back with the help of his hands and feet, and flung his dagger at an oncoming soldier ready to allow his heavy axe drop onto Blank.

Dagger made sure she backed away from Zidane as more soldiers leaked into the room. She didn't want to make a mistake when she was in the heat of battle. Her anger was rising, and yet dissolving all at once at seeing him well enough to be able to fight. She didn't want to make a mistake. She aided her friends by casting spells on them whenever she could, but unfortunately spells took a long time to conjure... It was a challenge to keep all the soldiers back, though she could see out of the corner of her eye Steiner trudged to her aid.

Hitting them back with the pitiful staff she had, she saw Steiner violently get knocked back from a guard using the similar technique to Blank - hitting the helmet to make their guard crumble before kicking them down. Luckily, Steiner had enough training with the young bandit to roll out of the way before the killing strike.

Retreating seemed impossible now, with guards at every corner and crack in the room. Even if they tried, they would be slowed down because of the wounded. Breathing heavily, she knew that her actions could suffer a sevre consequence, but she understood what she must do.

She closed her eyes knowing very well what they were all suffering when they were here. They needed to get out, and she believed there was only one way to do this. She called for Freya's aid, who quickly summoned a dragon to protect Dagger, as she began to build up her magic power.

In the background, she heard Beatrix scream for her to stop, but she couldn't do it... She raised her staff to begin the summon.

Beatrix's eyes widened, as she gasped, running forward and putting a hand to her chest. She screamed for Dagger to stop, because she held the knowledge of what would entail. The only living person who knew how to summon... The Princess of Alexandria... better known as Garnet Til Alexandros 17th...

A thick humidity filled the air, and soon out of the midst of simple oxygen water began to appear, the strong magic noticable the moment it began. Everyone faultered as soon as the water began to build, all gazing up to see what was going on. One soldier who had been fighting Beatrix sometime earlier ran up to her, and plunged his sword into her lower back.

Her painful shriek was drowned out by the water creating a wave - a wave larger than anyone in the whole room had ever seen, washing over everything from people to spider webs in the upper corners belonging to spiders who thought they'd be safe.

In the air, some saw through the water who managed to stay conscious without hitting a wall with disturbing force, viewed the royal blue snake, glimmering with a summoning light, and long white whisker type body part whipping around it with the force of the wave... The water snake Leviathan. There was only a short time that people could capture it in their memories before everything began happening fast again and people, friend and foe, were being thrown all over the place. It would be tough to regroup and get out of the castle.

A guard stumbling down the stairs with a group, lacking in a sprint fast enough to make it there before the wave, saw the whole thing from a room behind Dagger... a room that happened to get hit last with the water. Though with his own life threaten, he bolted back up the stairs at an amazing rate, one other guard tagging behind him, who was thrown backward by the force. A blood trail ran up the stairs as well from that guard, but no time could be wasted - they had to report this to General Strand so he could report back to their Lord Kuja...

They had to report that they had found someone who could summon.

They had to report they had finally, after thirteen years, found the lost Princess Garnet.

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A/N: Wow that was fun to write :D I'm so excited to keep going with this! :D

Please REVIEW and tell me what you think!

-zesty-