What Quistis Did Next Book 2
By Lee Chrimes
The desk crashed down onto the floor and disintegrated into a thousand splinters. The three people in its way dived for cover as a volley of razor sharp wooden spikes rattled around them, slicing through the curtains, embedding into walls and stapling most of Quistis’ work to the chalkboard behind her. She stood slowly up from behind her teacher’s desk to survey the damage.
"Redman, we are going to have to have words," she said sternly, glaring at the abuser of the desk as they floated serenely back down to earth. The two other students in the class peeked out from their hiding places then applauded loudly, prompting Redman to make a few mock curtseys for them.
Katya Redman was proving to be the biggest handful in the class right now. The girl had disarmingly innocent looks that did little to suggest the occasionally terrifying amount of raw power she commanded. A little over five foot four inches tall, a slim frame and shoulder length blonde bombshell hair, coupled with bright blue eyes and a perfect toothed smile, she had the looks normally associated with a fashion model or a teen pop star, and not with a magic user with the power to flip cars and hurl them dozens of feet into the air if she felt like it.
The two other students were both male, and in their own way were just as big a problem. Cevin McClewen was a martial artist who could probably make a comfortable living as a tournament fighter if he could only be bothered to. Tall and well built, with short, spiky red hair and tanned skin, he was a Balamb native like the other two but had already travelled around more than his seventeen years would suggest. The last student was Criss Brendan, a gunblade specialist who seemed to combine the cocksureness of Seifer and the moodiness of Squall into one often awkward package – quiet and sombre in lessons and socially, but loud and cocky when out in the field.
Quite how Quistis had gotten herself into this mess escaped her, but as Katya’s feet hit the ground again Quistis was ready with a rebuke for the destructive young cadet.
"What in the hell was that?" she yelled into Redman’s unresponding face. "I asked you to lift the desk two feet into the air and then put it down again, not detonate it and try to nail us all to the walls?"
"I’m sorry, Instructor," she said sweetly, "I guess I just got carried away." Katya’s expression was a perfect poker face, not giving away any hint of how much she’d obviously enjoyed that little display of power. Quistis seethed at her for a few moments then stalked away to the wreckage of her desk. Standing behind it, arms folded, she looked up and addressed the intercom above her in the ceiling.
"Computer, reset classroom, program Trepe-B3." The intercom bleeped its confirmation and the walls around the class shimmered and returned to their original state. Quistis and her class were inside one of Balamb’s brand new virtual classrooms, designed to give the students a good indoor environment to practice their skills. It took the form of a large room lined by holographic projection plates, similar technology to that used to hide the city of Esthar from outsiders, which could be set to display a variety of rooms and situations for the students to train in. Presently, Quistis was running a classroom simulation that gave her a large flat area in the centre of the room and desks all around the perimeter, so that she could let the students work out while watching them, and also allow the other cadets a chance to see what was going on. She looked over to the windows, the only ‘real’ thing in there, and sighed wistfully as the rain continued to lash down outside.
She’d let Katya into the middle of the room to work on her movement spells, mainly lifting both herself and objects around her and then moving them around the room. Redman had decided to put a little extra charge into the desk she was handling, however, blasting it into dust and spraying the room with fragments. Even though the room was essentially a holographic environment, the objects within still had all the necessary dimensions to be picked up, bumped into, tripped over and get impaled by, depending on what they were and who was using them.
"Look, the reason we’re in this room is because I didn’t want you lot to trash another room in the Garden, so don’t think that you’ve been given a free reign to smash this one to bits as well!"
"But Instructor, this isn’t a real room!" protested Cevin, answered by Quistis bouncing a chunk of desk off his head. As he rubbed the wound and sat back down, Quistis resumed her lesson.
"So as I was saying, the virtual classroom is a valuable teaching aid here but if you abuse it, I will not hesitate to confine you lot to practising your skills in the underbelly of the Garden, down in very, very small and extremely smelly rooms in the maintenance level. With any luck, there’ll still be plenty of critters down there to keep you company. Do I make myself clear?" The cadets murmured their consent. "Alright then. Now before Miss Redman decided to treat us all to a display of how strongly she dislikes the school’s furniture, she was actually putting on a very competent display of her powers."
Redman grinned smartly and poked her tongue out at the two boys. Quistis tried not to notice and continued.
"Movement, or rather your ability to do so, is one of the most important elements of any combat situation. An opponent who is having trouble moving will have trouble dodging or getting away, whereas if you boost your ability to get around a battle area quickly you’ll increase your effective combat ability and what is it, Brendan?" Quistis didn’t pause as she saw Criss’ hand pop up, but turned to face him instead, tapping a finger against her forearm impatiently.
"How will watching Kat throw desks around help us then, Miss?" he asked.
"I was getting to that. Katya was demonstrating that she has no problem manoeuvring small objects around, but movement spells can be used on allied targets as well. Katya, Cevin, step into the arena if you will." The two students stepped from their desks and down into the middle of the room.
"Now, Katya, lift Cevin into the air a little." Katya concentrated, gesturing with her arms as she started the spell she’d need. A green glow appeared around Cevin’s feet, and he was slowly lifted into the air. Then he went a little higher. Then higher still. He was six feet up when Katya saw Quistis glaring at her, and with a curt smile she lowered Cevin to a foot above the ground again. Quistis stepped out before them and readied her whip.
"Good. Now, move him out of the way of my whip as I try to hit him. Ready?"
"Hey, wait a minute, what?!" yelled Cevin, before ducking as Quistis cracked her whip inches above his head.
"Cevin! Stand perfectly still. Let Katya move you and you’ll be fine. Ready?" Katya nodded, her hands moving steadily around as she maintained the spell. Quistis snapped her whip to the left, and Katya sent Cevin darting out of the way. He complained loudly, but Katya was watching Quistis instead, anticipating her next attack.
Quistis went to the right, and Cevin was dodged out of the way again. Next, she went straight for his head, and Katya reacted by rotating Cevin horizontally, sending the tail of the whip cracking in the space where his head had been. Quistis gathered up her whip as Redman returned a shaken Cevin to the floor and dispelled the green glow.
"Very good, Katya. I’m also very glad that you managed to not blow Cevin up, students are hard to replace these days." Cevin shoved Katya lightly but she just giggled. The lesson bell rang outside the classroom, and Quistis headed back to her desk as the students gathered their bags. Picking up a remote control from her desk, she clicked a button and returned the virtual class to its natural state – a black room with broken white lines marking out the door frame and walls.
"I’ll see you all again in an hour, if the rain has stopped we can do some circuit training, if not it’s in here for a little pop quiz on something." The students groaned.
"Any idea what, Miss Trepe?" asked Katya.
"I don’t know," said Quistis with mock excitement, "but it’ll be a fun surprise, won’t it? Go on, scat, and try not to break anything," she said, jerking a thumb towards the door. The students filed out and disappeared, leaving Quistis alone in the room. The white lines lit the place up pretty well, so she rested against the teacher’s desk, the one solid object in the room, and closed her eyes to chill out for a second.
The three students were a high maintenance class, their attitudes bordering on insubordinate, their manners cocky and arrogant, their respect for authority non-existent and their concentration levels at zero. Despite the massive natural talent each one obviously had, Quistis was still working on how to beat it out of them. She heard the door open and looked up to see Xu in the doorway.
"Hey you. Got time for a bite to eat?"
"You bet," said Quistis, picking up her satchel and heading outside, "those little monsters really help me work up an appetite." She locked the classroom and headed out into the centre of the Garden with Xu.
Balamb Garden wasn’t much different, after all Quistis had only been away a few months. Squall and the others were no longer here but most of her old instructor friends were, so the transition back into teaching had been pretty painless. Quistis was on a part-time deal, spending between three and five hours a day with her class, and not having to teach any others unless there was a staff shortage. It was a pretty good deal; among other things it meant she could stay in the very nice temporary Garden apartments, which were normally reserved for visiting ambassadors and high-ranking Garden staff.
"Any progress today?" asked Xu brightly as the two girls headed for the cafeteria, the air-conditioned sub-tropical atmosphere inside the Garden contrasting with the black clouds and spattering of rain outside the huge glass domes overhead.
"How long has it been now?" asked Quistis.
"Uh, week and a bit," Xu replied, grabbing a salad from the self-service bar and heading out to grab a table for them both. Quistis followed her down with a tray packed with sandwiches, cakes and other high-energy goodies. Xu raised an eyebrow at her when she sat down.
"What? I need my stamina," Quistis protested. "Over a week already? Eesh. Feels like a lot longer," she said. Xu began to natter about the day’s gossip as Quistis munched through her food, half-listening to Xu but not really comprehending what she was saying. Her mind’s eye wandered back to the previous week, when she’d met her new class for the first time.
Cid had led her into an ominously quiet classroom, made for thirty but occupied by just three. Redman, Criss and McClewen were sat neatly behind desks, spaced out to fill the room a little better. After a few brief introductions, Cid had left, and Quistis surveyed the room for a few moments before she spoke. The bright colour scheme contrasted the obviously dark mood of her students.
"Good morning, class, such as it is, my name is Quistis Trepe and I’ll be your new Instructor."
"The Quistis Trepe?" asked McClewen. Quistis managed to restrain a grin.
"The one and only."
"I heard they kicked you out because you were no good. Is that why you’re teaching us now?" Quistis winced at Cevin’s remark, but she at least had the knowledge that his accusation was a false one.
"You must hear a lot of things, McClewen, anything else you’d like to share?"
"Plenty," said Cevin, sitting upright and counting off on his fingers as he spoke. "I heard you fell in love with a student of yours, I heard you were responsible for Seifer Almasy getting loose into the world, and I heard-"
"What you heard doesn’t mean a damn thing!" said Quistis, slamming both fists down onto his desk and towering over him. She saw a brief flicker of shock pass over his face. He hid it well, but she knew she’d seen it. These kids weren’t as bulletproof as they seemed to think they were. "You are here to start to make something of yourselves, and not spend your days filling your heads with idle half-truths!" She paced back to the front of the class and hopped up onto the desk to face the class.
"I’ve heard a lot about you three," she said. "Katya Redman, gifted magic user, enormous amount of potential but absolutely no inclination to harness it, content instead to play tricks on her classmates and generally be a pain in the butt." Katya smiled brightly. Another wiseguy. thought Quistis. "Cevin McClewen, martial artist first class, spends more time getting into fights he knows he can win than developing his skills in more challenging situations." McClewen sat back in his chair, trying not to appear rattled by Quistis’ confrontation with him moments ago. "And finally, Brendan Criss, gunblade expert but too arrogant to think he needs any actual training in it, wasting his talent blasting empty bottles off fences than learning how to shoot in the field." Quistis let that sink in before continuing.
"You’re with me because, frankly, you’re all useless in your present state. But the headmaster refuses to give up on you, and it’s my job to reward his faith in you all by turning you into the SeeDs you all have the potential to be. I get the impression already that this is going to be hard on all of us, but show me a little respect and we’ll get along just fine." She saw Brendan raise his hand. "What is it, Cadet Criss?"
"With all due respect, ma’am, we’re just trying our best to get expelled so we can get the hell out of this place as quickly as possible. Any way you want to help us speed that along is just fine by me." He settled back down smartly, accompanied by sniggers from the other two students. Not a great way to start.
Quistis came to and realised Xu was still talking. Looking down, she was surprised to see she’d eaten almost everything on her tray without noticing, and Xu certainly hadn’t seen that Quistis was fazed out for most of the past few minutes.
"And then, little Zoey Tyburn, you remember her? Well, she moved up into intelligence and I think she’ll do brilliantly at that, she still talks about you, you know, lots of them do- oh darn, look at the time, I’ve got to dash. See you later, Quistis!"
"Mm," said Quistis, watching Xu pack up and scoot off. Talking to Xu was simple, all you had to do was listen. She looked down at her watch. Half an hour until the next lesson with the monsters. With a final resigned glance up to the rainclouds, she sat up and headed off to the classroom they were scheduled for. Today was going to be a long day.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Quistis sat in the empty staffroom, watching the rain still pouring down outside, her head resting glumly on her hands. She’d moved her chair over to the windows to be able to stare blankly out over the playing fields of the Garden, so that she could relax her eyes and let her brain concentrate on filing away all non-essential information. The warm atmosphere of the staffroom was still present despite Quistis being the only person in there, with its thickly-carpeted floor and effectively soundproofed walls making it a haven from whatever was going on out in the rest of the Garden. The row of computer terminals against the left hand wall were all humming away quietly, running the Garden’s official screensaver which detailed the crest of Balamb and a motto underneath it in some old language Quistis never got round to deciphering.
She was reviewing the past week since her return. She’d asked Cid to keep it as low-key as possible, given the fanfare that was her departure. It seemed pretty gauche of her to expect a big welcome back from the people she’d so publicly taken her leave from, but to her relief everyone seemed glad to have her back, even in this reduced capacity. The fact that Squall and the others weren’t here had helped for sure, as they were the people she had the most ties to after all. Rack, Xu, Dallara and the other instructors just seemed happy to have her around again, and as a lot of her old students were now out in the field in various parts of the world she was effectively starting from fresh.
The sun was shining when she started the final approach to the Garden, the ferry ride over having been a little painful with the memory of meeting Justin for the first time still crystal clear in her mind. She’d been discharged from the hospital with a relatively clean bill of health about a week after moving out of the intensive care ward, the doctors warning her to take it easy to avoid aggravating her injuries but expressing pleasant surprise at how fast her body had healed up. Cid had given her a few more days to recharge her batteries before reporting back to the Garden the following Monday morning. Quistis spent the weekend at Nona’s before driving out again.
She thought idly about what Fujin and Raijin had gotten up to as she passed the harbour where she’d last seen them both, but elected to wait until she was at the Garden, then use its superior surveillance resources to track them down. Once she’d completed the drive up to the Garden’s front gates, she sat in her car for several minutes, trying to psyche herself up to re-enter. It had only been a few months but a lot had happened since then, and she wanted to make sure she didn’t look like she was crawling back to her job because she’d made a mess of life out in the real world.
There were a few random students milling around the perimeter of the Garden, not really paying much attention to Quistis as she drove slowly down the main drive and pulled into one of the overground staff parking spaces. Small security and maintenance drones buzzed overhead on their circuits of the premises, and the walk from her jeep down to the Garden entrance was as picturesque as it had always been, as Quistis walked down the marble steps into the quadrangle outside the main doors, past the fountain that framed the centre of the whole area and up into the main reception area. The mini-waterfalls and lush air-conditioned atmosphere inside, combined with the soft music piped through the Garden’s intercom system up above her head, gave the place the air of a health spa more than a training ground sometimes, not that Quistis was complaining of course. She was complaining slightly about the weight of the three bags she’d brought with her, but then that was her own fault for failing to leave anything of hers behind. Cid and Xu were waiting for her,
"Hello again, Instructor Trepe, welcome back." Cid shook her hand formally, chuckling to himself. "I hope your stay here is a little more to your liking this time round!"
"Thanks, Cid, but don’t forget I’m only here as a favour to you," she replied. "Once these students of yours graduate, I’m out of here again." Xu and Cid exchanged a brief glance before Xu started to speak.
"Welcome back, Q, we’ve got everything you need ready and set up for you. You’ll be staying in one of the executive suites for the duration of your stay," she said, starting to walk in the direction of the rooms over on the east side of the Garden, with Quistis and Cid in tow. "You should find everything you need in there, and all the old information on your students from their previous teachers is in there too."
"Just out of interest, how many other instructors have they had?" asked Quistis. Cid and Xu exchanged a look again.
"Er, twelve," said Xu quietly.
"TWELVE??" shouted Quistis, causing several passing students’ heads to turn as she stopped dead in her tracks. "Cid, what the hell have you talked me into here?" Cid held up his hands to call for peace.
"Don’t worry, they’ll be fine. The other instructors all tried different approaches with limited success, I brought you in because I know you’re the one who can get through to these kids." Quistis eyed him suspiciously for a moment, before deciding he was being honest and starting to walk again.
"Maybe I’d better see these notes before I make my mind up," she said.
A few minutes later they were in the VIP rooms, and Quistis whistled appreciatively at the luxurious comfort she was going to be lived in. Balamb Garden kept a suite of six expensively-furnished rooms in a separate, quiet wing of the Garden for visiting ambassadors, senior Garden personnel and other dignitaries, and to Quistis they had always seemed the Holy Grail of Garden accommodation. Now here she was, about to move into one! The room had a large set of windows overlooking the postcard-perfect green landscape of Balamb, with the beach and seafront glittering away just a mile or two away, and as the sun shone through into the room it lit up the spotlessly clean furniture like a dream. A springy double bed, a minty fresh bathroom, a small kitchen and worksurface that came ready prepared with every cooking utensil imaginable, and a computer terminal and desk that was already well stocked and loaded with the files and info Quistis needed to brush up on the history of her new students. Quistis dropped her bags by the door and looked round the room.
"This should be appropriate accommodation for you," said Cid with a sly smile, gesturing with his arm to show the room off like a gameshow host. "You’ll find everything you’ll need in here – the cupboards are stocked up so there’s no need to rely on canteen food."
"And the TVs in here get, like, a million more channels than the regular Garden broadcasts," enthused Xu, and the two girls laughed as Quistis turned the TV on and flopped down onto the bed.
"Leave me now," she said in mock exhaustion," the lady has had a long drive out here, and one needs to rest."
"Get settled in then, Quistis, and I’ll see you in my office in, say, two hours?" Quistis held up a hand with three fingers outstretched. "Three then," grinned Cid. "See you later." Cid and Xu filed out of the room and left Quistis sprawled across the bed, and within moments she’d dozed off into a light sleep, the TV making inoffensive noise in the background.
She came to a little while later and saw that she had just under half an hour before she had to go and see Cid, so she sat up, yawned and stretched and wandered over to her bags which still lay, unpacked, by the door. She grabbed the first smart looking outfit she found out of there, threw it on and made her way over to Cid’s office. Walking through the halls out of uniform was quite refreshing – there were plenty of new faces who didn’t recognise her, and the few who did were happy with a quick wave as she continued on her way.
Taking the elevator up to Cid’s office and then strolling through into the headmaster’s comfortably furnished study didn’t feel as awkward as she’d expected – in fact, it felt unsettlingly like home. Quistis realised that no matter how far she travelled away from here, she’d always have a connection to this place, and whether it kept drawing her back or she never came here again, she’d always feel like part of the scenery at the Garden. She rapped her knuckles lightly on the oak office door as she walked in, and Cid looked up from the newspaper he was reading as she came in.
"Temporary Instructor Quistis Trepe reporting for duty," she said, and Cid smiled and gestured for her to take a seat. "I didn’t get chance to check much of those files," she said, hoping the fact that she’d actually been asleep for the last two and a half hours wasn’t too obvious.
"Get a good nap, then?" said Cid, the disarmingly benign smile never leaving his face. Damn, thought Quistis, blushing involuntarily.
"Yes, thanks," she said dismissively. "So when do I start?" Cid put his newspaper down and stood up, wandering over to the windows overlooking the playing fields with his hands in his pockets thoughtfully. Quistis could sense another of those ‘old boys’ speeches coming and made sure she was sitting comfortably.
"Your first lesson with your new class is scheduled for tomorrow morning, so I’d advise you familiarise yourself with their files before then. I won’t kid you, Quistis, these students are hard work. They’re arrogant, rude, disrespectful, wild, unpredictable and generally very close to being a danger to themselves and those around them. Which is why I knew that you’re the only instructor I could trust with them."
"That’s pretty bold of you, Cid, what makes you think I could do it?"
"Quistis, I was prepared to entrust the fate of the free world to you when I sent you out with Squall, I think by comparison these three are pretty easy work," he said, that grin still firmly in place. Quistis smiled back at the compliment, trying not to listen to the voice in the back of her mind telling her that Cid was just buttering her up so she’d stay on.
"Alright, I’m sold already or I wouldn’t even be here," she said. "What do I need to know?"
"You’ve got a powerful but inexperienced and woefully undisciplined magic user named Katya Redman to deal with, a martial artist who keeps getting into streetfights called Cevin McClewen, and a gunblader with an attitude problem called Criss Brendan. Psychological evaluations have decided that Redman appears to suffer from occasional delusions of grandeur, mainly when using higher-level spells and powers. McClewen just has a big mouth and likes to push people into reacting to him, while Brendan is possibly bipolar – he swings from silent, stony faced moodiness to manic activity almost at random. We’ve tried to identify what triggers him but no luck so far." Cid turned round to see Quistis was staring out of the window thoughtfully. "Is everything alright?" he asked.
"Hm? What? Oh, yes, I was just, you know, processing the information," she said, spiralling a finger round her temples to demonstrate the flow of data. "Trying to work out what angle to approach them from. What’s going to be tricky is having all three in class at once – if I could tackle them one at a time I could tailor my approach to each one to suit their particular ‘issue,’ but I take it that’s been tried before?" Cid nodded.
"Splitting them up doesn’t help, I decided that keeping them together minimises the negative effect they have on the rest of the Garden’s students. Quite a few of the regular cadets look up to them, in that way that youngsters find rebellion so exciting, so I’ve been trying not to let them interact too much for the time being. They’ll make great SeeDs one day, but right now they could spread a dangerously dissident influence throughout my garden, and I do not want that to happen."
"Looks like I’m your girl, then," said Quistis, standing up and joining Cid by the window. She followed his gaze to three students sat a distance away from anyone else on the field, with a Garden Faculty member close by. "Is that them?" she asked. Cid sighed and nodded.
"I really don’t like to keep them apart from everyone else like that, but I’ve found it causes fewer problems. McClewen just gets into fights anyway," said Cid with a chuckle.
"I’ll do my best, Cid."
"I know you will, that’s why I asked you to come back. I’m glad you see now why I was forced to demote you in the first place, I can’t apologise enough for any stress that put you under." Quistis thought back to that night at the meeting place where she’d told Squall about her sacking, and how desperately worthless she’d felt that night. She tried to dismiss the thought with a smile.
"I was fine about it after a while," she lied. "Well, I’d best head back and start catching up on my reading," she said, "speak to you later."
Cid watched her leave then sat back down again. Once Quistis was out of the office, Cid looked over to one corner of the room as Edea’s form rippled out from the wall, solidifying as the sorceress dispelled the invisibility she’d cast on herself.
"Goodness, I thought I was going to fade away for good with how long you kept me hiding over here!" she said, self-consciously dusting her black dress down and checking her arms to make sure every part of her was visible again.
"Sorry about that, dear," said Cid apologetically, pulling up a chair next to him and patting it for her to sit on. Edea walked over and sat down, raising her legs to lie across Cid’s lap while he slipped off her shoes and began to massage her feet dutifully. Edea leaned back and closed her eyes, her long dark hair trailing over the back of the chair.
"It’s too warm in here," she said, absently waving a hand. Two of the small windows in the office popped open, and Cid smiled at his wife’s humorously casual magic use.
"Thank you for sticking around, though, I felt better having you in the room while I was talking to her," said Cid. "I wasn’t sure she’d agree to it all until she left just then."
"Even though nobody could see me?"
"Even though nobody could see you," he smiled. "Your presence is appreciated."
"Enough talk, more massage," she said, pointing to her feet. Cid grinned and carried on.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Well, hello there, class!" said Quistis with mock brightness as her three cadets filed into the classroom. They were in a regular room this time, as the rain outside meant that circuit training was temporarily off the agenda. Not that a good run around in the freezing rain wouldn’t be good for them, but Quistis had decided that hospitalising them with pneumonia probably wasn’t a great idea. Well, not at the moment, anyway.
"This is pop quiz time, I take it?" asked Redman as she sat down. Quistis nodded, then watched as Redman raised a hand and levitated a sheet of paper and a pencil off Quistis’s desk and brought them through the air to land neatly on her own desk. Damn, that kid’s good, thought Quistis. Brendan and McClewen went for the more traditional method of taking the paper from Quistis’ desk before sitting down.
"Today’s little exercise will, you’ll be glad to hear, be cancelled at a moment’s notice if the weather clears up, because I think pop quizzes are boring too. However, in the absence of a better plan, get your pencils ready, class." Cevin muttered under his breath while Criss started to write his name on his paper so heavily the lead in his pencil snapped. It didn’t stop him scrawling the rest of it out, however. Redman sighed and snatched the pencil out of his hand, waving a hand in front of it and using a tiny and well-controlled fire spell to sharpen the pencil’s nub again. Criss nodded his thanks and took the pencil back.
"The first question is a simple one – write down the one thing you’d like to do more of at the Garden. Be as honest as you can and write whatever you feel most strongly about." Quistis watched. Cevin and Katya thought for a second then scribbled a few lines down, but Criss sat, arms folded, staring at his blank sheet of paper.
"No ideas, Brendan?" she asked. He just shrugged. Looks like he’s in one of his less communicative kinds of moods then, thought Quistis. "Well, you don’t have to answer that one of there really isn’t anything you can think of right now. The next question is write down one thing you’d like to change about the Garden. Anything from the cafeteria opening times to adding more gun emplacements outside the gates."
"What exactly is any of this going to do, Instructor?" asked Cevin, reclining back in his chair and chewing on his pencil.
"It’s an exercise in diplomacy, McClewen," said Quistis, walking with folded arms over to the window to look out over the rain-soaked playing fields. "I want to get an idea of how the insides of your minds tick in certain ways, which is essential for me if I’m going to be able to teach you anything at all."
"If you really wanted to teach us, you’d find a way to help us escape from here and be far enough away to make it permanent before anybody noticed we were gone," said Cevin with a snicker, joined by chuckles from Redman and Brendan.
"Who says I don’t?" said Quistis without turning round. The laughter stopped, but in their reflections on the window before her Quistis saw Criss grin to himself before starting to write. She was starting to get a handle on how to deal with these kids – they’d been used to stuffy, authoritarian figures imposing rules on them left, right and centre, telling them what to do and where to stand 24/7. Quistis was more like them. She’d been a good student but she’d known when to work on the other side of the fence, when to bend the rules a little to get the job done. Add to that how she’d already shown these kids how she wasn’t going to be pushed around by them, or at least how she’d tried to show them that, and hopefully she’d start getting some results out of them soon. Time was getting on too, she had a few weeks before their first major written exam of this term, and after that the field exam was coming up so she had to make sure they were ready for that.
"The third and final question is a simple one too – write down one thing you’d change about me, or the way I teach you guys. We’ll be going over your answers when you’re done."
"I see what you’re doing here," said McClewen. "You’re trying to get us to tell you how to teach us, aren’t you?" Rumbled, thought Quistis. Better think of an answer fast.
"Not really, I’m treating this as a very basic psychological evaluation of you all. I know you’ve probably had enough psyche tests by now to be able to walk through them blindfolded, so this is my way of understanding you a bit more."
"What if we screwed around with the answers?" said Redman, with a cheeky smirk.
"I think I’ll be able to work that out. Plus, that’ll tell me what I need to know anyway! Now get moving. Once we’re done, if it’s brightened up we can run around in circles outside for an hour while I shout at you. And won’t that be fun?" she said as the three students put their heads down again. A minute or so later Quistis held three sheets of paper up before her, pacing round the classroom as she read from them.
"First off, Cevin. Cevin would like to spend more time being able to wander around and kick the stuffing out of anyone who looks at him funny, like most of the cadets here do. This is the edited highlights, you understand," she said, as Redman chuckled. "What he’d like to change at the Garden is make more room for people who don’t want to waste their day in lessons, and what he’d change about me is make me stop being so uptight about how obviously more talented we are all the time." Quistis paused while Cevin leaned back in his chair smugly. Quistis strolled casually past, still reading, and with one swift jab of her boot heel snapped his chair from two legs to four, jolting Cevin out of his gloat.
"What does that tell us that we didn’t already know about Kung Fu over there?" said Brendan.
"It tells me that we need to spend more time on giving you the combat training you’re looking for, or you’re just going to carry on wandering round the Garden venting your anger on whoever is unfortunate enough to pass you by. That is something I can easily sort out, so don’t you worry about beating any of those nasty boys up any more!" she said, patting Cevin on the head sarcastically and adopting the tone of a mother talking to a baby. Cevin reddened but stayed silent. "Next is the lovely Miss Redman. She would like to spend more time practising with her powers out in actual situations and not being stuck in virtual classrooms throwing desks around. What she’d change about this wonderful Garden is that she’d make it more exclusive, to get rid of all the quote unquote ‘timewasting normal people.’ Finally, she’d like me to stop holding her back in lessons all the time because she feels I’m stopping her from realising her potential." Quistis had made her way towards Redman’s chair, where the cadet was looking back at her, trying to guess Quistis’ next move.
"Not bad, Katya," said Quistis. "I agree that I’ve been holding you back a little, but have you stopped to ask yourself why that is?"
"I thought it was because nobody here can handle what I can do," she said self-assuredly, examining her fingernails. She looked up to meet Quistis’ unimpressed glare.
"Not exactly. You can’t handle what you can do yet, and the only reason I’m making you reign in your powers is because you stand a very good chance of injuring yourself and other people at the moment. You’re good, but you’re undisciplined, and you let your powers rage out of control. I’m going to help you with that, but I can only do so much. The rest has to come from you. As for making Garden more ‘exclusive,’ well, don’t you think that’d just lessen the variety we currently enjoy?" She left Katya with that thought and sat up against the desk in front of Criss.
"Finally we come to Criss Brendan, the strong silent type who managed to write so concisely that his sheet just has three words on it," she said, holding Criss’ paper up for the others to see. "When asked, ‘what would you like to do more of?’ Brendan answered, simply, ‘nothing.’ When asked ‘what would you change about the Garden?’ Criss wrote ‘everything,’ and when asked what he’d change about me, he added ‘anything.’ Ten out of ten for precision marking, and a further ten points for trying so hard to avoid letting me work anything out from your answers. However, despite writing so little you’ve told me the most about yourself, so well done on that. I’m going to keep my observations on you a secret for the time being, but suffice to say I think I know just how to get you working at the level of potential you’ve shown at last." Quistis walked back up to her desk at the head of the class and looked out of the windows. Fingers of sunlight were starting to dig their way through the murky grey clouds plastering over the sky, and despite a low wind kicking up all across the playing field Quistis could see that the rain had stopped.
"Looks like you’ve got a promise to keep, Instructor," said Redman.
"Indeed I do! Right then. Class, assemble at the gym block in your track outfits in ten minutes and we’ll see if we can’t make the most of the impending sunshine." Quistis turned round at the scrape of their chairs as the class got up and filed out. Criss paused in the doorway and turned back to talk to Quistis.
"Instructor?"
"Yes, Brendan?"
"Nothing. I was just wondering what you meant back there." Quistis turned to him with a smile.
"I used to know someone a lot like you," said Quistis, "and he had a bit of an issue opening up to people as well. I mean, you at least balance that out with the moods you have when you can’t stop talking, so that’s a start.." Quistis trailed off in thought. When she looked up, Criss was still in the doorway, looking quizzically at her. Quistis sighed and waved a hand at him. "Long story, never mind. Go get ready, I’ll see you three out on the track circuit in a minute." Criss nodded and closed the door as he left. Quistis let herself get lost in her thoughts for a few minutes before she headed out to follow them.
What was it about gunblade specialists anyway? They seemed to either be stoic moody types like Squall or cocksure bundles of arrogance like Seifer. And if they were like Criss Brendan, they somehow combined elements of both.. When in combat, Brendan was more like Seifer, all swagger and assuredness as he went about his work. Off duty, he clammed up and wandered the halls with his head down, just like Squall in the early days of Quistis knowing him, avoiding human contact as though it would burn his skin at the touch. Quistis thought there had to be something about the gunblade as a weapon that attracted those two very distinct personality types, but she had no idea what. It might be a good exercise to get each cadet talk through why they’d picked the speciality they had on day, although with Redman is was a bit more obvious – there was a long history of magic users in her family, and so much exposure to magical objects and spells can start to work its way into the DNA over the years, making each new generation more likely to be skilled in the use of magic, and thus more likely to take it up professionally.
Anyway, it was time for the track lesson. Quistis checked the weather before she left the classroom. The clouds were departing and the familiar rays of Balamb sunshine were doing their best to burn off the moisture on the ground, so with a smile Quistis made her way over to the gym block.
"Good afternoon, class, nice to see none of you managed to get lost on your way across from the classroom to the changing rooms," said Quistis as she stood on the pavilion overlooking the sports field, looking down at her three students in their gym outfits. Or, at least, as close to gym outfits as they could get – they were all wearing shorts and a t-shirt, but all non-regulation – Balamb’s dress code should have had them all in blue, but Katya was wearing a red t-shirt with some obscure fashion designer’s logo on it and white shorts, Cevin had on a black tee with his favourite rock band’s logo proudly emblazoned on it (and Quistis actually recognised them, which made her feel a little old all of a sudden), and Criss was wearing a lack long sleeved top which was pain except from one line of white lettering, which read ‘Freak.’ Teenagers, muttered Quistis to herself, trying t forget that she was still a few months away from turning twenty herself. She was dressed in almost regulation blue shirt and black shorts, but the band t-shirt she had on was inside out to hide the logo on the reverse.
"What’s the plan then, Quisty?" said Cevin, tongue firmly in cheek as he continued. "Want us to run around for twenty minutes so you can watch us sweat? I hear some of the instructors like that.."
"I’m not one of the other instructors, remember? I’m your own personal teacher. No funny stuff, McClewen, or I’ll fill the long jump pit with lava and get you to jump it with rocks tied to your trainers. Now then, class, a few warm up exercises first." Quistis started to run through some muscle limbering up exercises with them before walking them out to the edge of the track circuit. A 1500m circuit with various sections of the inside and outside of the track set up for long jump and high jump runs, the Balamb Track circuit hosted local athletics competitions around this time of year so was in good condition right now. Stands of seats ran round the perimeter but apart from a few students enjoying the sunshine they were empty.
"Right. We’ll do a few laps of this to start with. Well, when I say ‘we’ I mean you lot, I have the very important duty of standing here with my stopwatch to time you. Marks? Set! And get lost!" The three students dutifully started jogging round the circuit, gradually increasing their speed. Quistis noticed how easily Katya seemed to be moving, and closer inspection pointed out why.
"Redman! No levitation or you’ll have to run the whole thing backwards!" yelled Quistis, and Redman ran with both feet on the ground instead of just above it. She kept them running for a little while before trying out some long jumps, and finished the session off with some sprint training. Quistis dismissed the class when all that was done, and the three tired cadets sloped back to the changing rooms just as Rack led his class out for their training runs. He jogged over to her as she stood watching her three charges depart.
"How’s things going with the unholy trinity, then?" he asked. Rack’s class numbered about thirty, quite a contrast.
"Not bad. They still give me a lot of lip but I think I’m starting to work out where everyone else went wrong with them."
"Oh? Why’s that then?" The two started to walk slowly round the infield as Rack’s class jogged around the circuit.
"Everyone else tried too hard to make these kids follow the rules. That’s what they rejected and that’s why they were such a handful."
"You’re not doing that, I take it?"
"Nope, I’m making up a new set of rules just for them, which is something I have the luxury of being able to do! Each has their own needs and requires a different approach, but I’m starting to nail down what it is I need to do with each of them. It’s just a matter of time now, and as it happens tomorrow has something pretty unexpected in store for each of them," said Quistis with a knowing grin.
* * * * * * * * * * *
The hexadragon roared and bellowed a gout of lurid red flame out into the air, then swung its head down again, missing Brendan’s outstretched arm by inches as he shoved Katya out of the way. The huge black beast reared up in the air, two of its several pairs of legs buffeting the air before slamming down hard again, the shockwave throwing Redman and Brendan to the ground. Criss looked across to McClewen, unconscious and bleeding by their side, but he didn’t have time to think of what to do with his fallen comrade as the thick, spiked tail of the hexadragon slammed into him a second later, and he hurtled through the air to crash down heavily several feet away. His vision fogged and he could dimly hear Katya calling his name through the stars popping inside his head.
Brendan staggered to his feet, just in time to see the dragon galloping towards him. Redman was bravely trying to contain it using a gravity spell, but it was taking its sweet time working. Black tendrils of energy were looping round the monster but they weren’t slowing it up as much as planned. Criss’ hand reached down to his belt for his gunblade, but found nothing but empty air. he tore his eyes away from the approaching creature to look, and saw that in the melee it had been torn away and was lying on the ground several feet away.
Criss looked up again as the hexadragon loomed above him, its multitude of blue eyes reflecting him as it reared up for another strike. Katya’s spell had bought him just enough time to leap to the side, rolling as he hit the ground and picking up his blade. He skidded to a halt and crouched, ready to spring back to action. the beast had stopped and was turning slowly towards him, shrugging off the spell despite Katya’s visible exertion to maintain it. The effort finally overcame her and she wilted to the ground, exhausted. Criss locked eyes with the dragon as it regarded him coolly, waiting for his next move.
With a yell he sprang to his feet and rushed it, leaping into the air to avoid its tail and hopping to the side to dodge a burst of flame before leaping high into the air and bringing his blade down squarely on the top of the creature’s head, the force of his blow driving the blade deep into the dragon’s brain. With a roar it shook its head wildly around trying to dislodge the blade, succeeding only in casting Criss off. As its adrenaline lost the fight with the shock damage, the dragon slowed and stumbled, collapsing as its legs buckled beneath it to a heap on the ground. It breathed once more and then was still.
Criss walked over to Katya and helped her to her feet. She looked a mess – her hair was thick with sweat and she looked like something had drained all the colour from her body, but she was otherwise unhurt. McClewen was just coming round too, and he sat up clutching his head with a groan. Criss held out a hand but Cevin brushed it away angrily and tried to push himself to his feet. Criss shrugged and threw one of Katya’s arms across his shoulders to help her stand.
A solitary round of applause could be heard, and the three cadets looked round to see Quistis watching them, sunglasses on and a half-eaten sandwich in her hand from the picnic basket by her feet. They were out on the infamous Island Closest To Hell, so called because it was swarming with some of the toughest monsters anywhere in the world. Legend has it that biologists had introduced the various creatures there many years ago as an experiment to see how they would interact, but the monster population had spread over the years and the island was now a no-go area. Unless you were SeeD personnel with access to a helicopter, anyway. Quistis had led the recruits out here for a spot of hands-on combat training, deciding that the grats lurking in the Garden’s training centre were too weak for her class to practice on, so jumping in at the deep end here would bet the best bet.
"Well done, class, good marks. There were a few things I’d have done differently, but never mind that now." The class limped over to face her. The landscape of the island varied rapidly between dense jungle, open plains and rocky hillsides, another by-product of experimentation over the years. The tampering with the environment had brought on one pleasant side effect, however – the island was a plentiful source of magic energy, and a skilled user could draw power from here that could easily be converted into almost every spell known. Quistis had sat on a grassy embankment while the class squared up to the dragon in a thickly treed area, watching how they handled themselves.
"I’m glad we passed, miss," said Cevin, grimacing and holding his side. Quistis guessed he’d probably taken a few cracked ribs when the dragon had run him into one of the tress early in the fight.
"Oh, this isn’t an exam, this is just training," said Quistis through a mouthful of food. "Once you’re patched up we’re going to find something else to fight. The monsters here develop much more quickly than normal, it’s a side-effect of all the magic energy this place is filled with."
"It may take a while to ‘patch us up’ is all," said Katya through ragged breath, "that one took a lot out of us." Quistis picked up a drinks carton and took a slurp from it before continuing.
"Part of the arsenal of any SeeD is the ability to maintain combat effectiveness in the field. That boils down to being able to look after yourself when you get hurt. Now, it’s impractical to lug dozens of medical supplies around with you just in case you cut yourself on something, so you save those for emergencies. The rest of the time, either try not to get hit or get used to healing spells." She turned to Katya, who was just managing to stand shakily on her own two feet at last. "Reckon you can manage a few?"
"I’ll try, instructor," she said, "just give me a minute." Katya stood up straight and ran her fingers through her hair as she composed herself. She took in a deep breath and drew out a sphere in the air before her with her hands. As she repeated the motion, a soft blue light filled the space before her, which she then motioned towards Criss. He breathed in sharply as the healing spell took him, then visibly relaxed.
"It’s cold," he said with a grin.
"Very good, Katya. Glad to see you’ve been listening to me after all. Could you make a stronger one up for Cevin now?" Katya nodded and turned to Cevin, who backed away with his hands up.
"No way, I don’t need any of that magic stuff on me," he protested. "I’ll be fine." To prove his point, he flexed his muscles and tried to shrug off any pain that might cause him.
Katya and Quistis exchanged a look as Cevin squirmed in agony on the ground before them. Quistis motioned for her to go ahead with the spell, and with a nod she conjured up another ball of blue light, this one brighter and more intense. As that floated down onto Cevin, his squirming stopped and he pulled himself back up to his feet.
"Now the thing to remember is that healing spells won’t set broken bones or repair severed arteries or anything like that. What they will do is hold off the pain for long enough for you to fix it, as well as making sure your blood loss and tissue damage doesn’t get any worse. An enchanted wound won’t pick up any infection either." Quistis looked round at the class. Cevin was looking at the floor, obviously unhappy with needing to be helped out like that. Quistis made a mental note to work on that aspect of his character later before she addressed them all.
"On the whole, I was very impressed. Katya and Criss, you demonstrated teamwork and a good knowledge of each other’s strengths and weaknesses – I liked your plan to slow the creature down so Criss could attack it, Katya, and how you went straight to help her once the thing was down. Full marks. However, McClewen," she said, standing before him. "Well, where do I start. You steamed in first without any kind of plan and got slammed facefirst into a tree for your trouble. You lasted exactly twelve seconds in that fight and were no help to anybody for the rest of it, largely because you were unconscious." She took another sip of her drink. "Actually, on reflection that may have been a benefit to the other two. We need to get all three of you working as a team or you’ll all be killed because of it."
"I lasted longer than twelve seconds, that’s just you being hard on me, I must’ve-" began Cevin, but he was silenced by Quistis, who without looking up had fished a stopwatch from her pocket and held it up for him to see. The timer didn’t lie, twelve point oh-one seconds. Cevin shut up and scowled again.
"Let’s take a minute to rest then go find something else." Quistis headed back up to the picnic basket and fished out an apple while the three cadets flopped to the ground.
The T-Rexaur bellowed, a combination of nerve-shreddingly loud noise, spit and the kind of breath that can only be achieved by a steady diet of raw animal flesh. It didn’t stop McClewen, however, who stood his ground before the huge monster as it padded slowly towards him. Cevin stood, hands on hips, as the creature advanced, its head bowed down low so it could get on an eye level with this intruder into its territory. Cevin waited until it was mere feet away from him, a faint smile playing across his lips as the t-rex’s eyes narrowed to slits and it examined him. It sniffed a few times, then stepped back.
Deciding that the creature before it many not be very big but smelt tasty and would do for now, the t-rex drew itself up to its full height and roared out a challenge to the sky, sending flocks of birds screeching away from the trees and causing most life on the island to respectfully fall silent for a few moments. Cevin was, deep down, a little on edge at squaring off bare-handed to such a fearsome opponent, but he had a plan and hopefully that plan wouldn’t get him killed.
"Come get some," he muttered as the t-rex hunched down and prepared to run at him. As soon as it began its first step, Cevin was on the move, zig-zagging towards the monster and catching it out, darting between its legs and past its swinging tail in seconds.
"Now!" he shouted, and on cue Katya, stationed in one of the trees overhead, used the energy she’d been steadily siphoning from the island and let rip with a binding spell that wrapped thick green ropes of magical power around the monster’s legs. With a confused growl the t-rex crashed headfirst to the ground, at which moment Brendan leapt out from the undergrowth he was hiding in and delivered a swift strike to the t-rex’s neck, triggering a gunblade blast at the same instant.
Quistis looked away from the resulting explosion, and tried not to hear the crunch and splatter noises that went with it. When she looked back, she saw her three students standing proudly by the decapitated t-rex, not a scratch on them. For a change. Quistis gave them a thumbs up from her vantage point and beckoned them over.
"Nice work, I think we can safely call it quits for today. Let’s get back to the chopper and head home, class." She turned and walked back to the helicopter station, with the cadets followed. McClewen jogged up to catch up to her.
"So, that was better, right? I mean, we took that thing out like, bam! Pow! Never even knew what hit him, right?"
"You certainly did, Cevin," said Quistis with a grin. "Don’t get too ahead of yourself, we still have a long way to go before you three are ready for the SeeD field exam. I think it’s fair to say we made a lot of progress today, though."
"Damn right we did," said Cevin proudly, hanging back to catch the others up. "Hear that? We did good today!" he enthused at them. Katya beamed back at him but Criss stayed quiet. "Felt good to get outside and kick something’s ass instead of sitting around at the Garden all day, huh?"
"Sure did," said Katya. She looked up to Criss but he remained silent, his eyes dead ahead. Katya sighed and nudged his arm, and he turned to look at her.
"What?"
"We were just feeling proud of ourselves for a moment, feel free to join in anytime, you know," said Redman with a grin. Criss nodded.
"Yup." Katya and Cevin left him to his thoughts and carried on nattering until they reached the edge of the island. The helicopter pad was a floating platform a few hundred metres away from the island itself, accessible by a long walkway across the ocean waters inbetween. The island was visited by research scientists and SeeD personnel fairly often, so the pad was always well maintained. Quistis was waiting by it as the three students sauntered out of the jungle, but as they set foot on the walkway she climbed into the helicopter’s passenger seat and motioned to the pilot. He started up the engines, and as the students watched in horror the rotor blades fired up.
"Hey! What the hell?" yelled Cevin over the growing noise. Katya’s long hair started to whip up from the rotor turbulence, and Brendan started to run towards the chopper. They were all too far away, sadly, and the chopper lifted off before Brendan was even halfway along the walkway. It hovered overhead and Quistis’ voice spoke from the loudspeaker on its belly.
"Don’t worry, I’m not leaving you here for good. This is just a little survival exercise for you all. I’ll be back in a few hours to pick you up again, all you have to do is not get killed in the meantime. Good luck!" And with that, the helicopter pulled away and flew back towards the mainland, leaving the students staring, speechless, after it.
The pilot turned to Quistis as the island faded from view.
"You’re not actually leaving them all alone there, are you?"
"Of course not, they’ve all got tracking devices on them. I’ll never be more than a few minutes away whatever happens. They won’t know that, obviously," she said with an evil grin. the pilot laughed and shook his head as she replaced her sunglasses and sat back to enjoy the trip.
Back on the island, Katya and McClewen caught up with Brendan.
"She left us.. " managed Redman, "she left us here!"
"Bitch," snarled McClewen, "I knew this being nice thing wouldn’t last."
"It’s another test," said Criss quietly. The other two turned to him.
"Say what?" said Cevin.
"It’s another test. She’ll be back for us before too long, don’t worry."
"I wish I could share your optimism," said Redman, turning to look back at the island. As if on cue, something large and ugly hollered out from deep within the jungles. She shuddered and turned to the others. "Now what do we do?"
"Let’s head back and find some shelter," said Criss. He started to walk back towards the island. Katya looked at McClewen, who shrugged and followed Brendan. With a shake of her head, Redman jogged after them both.
Tonight would be a long night.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Hmm? Oh, milk and two sugars, please. Thanks," said Quistis to the offer of coffee. She was at the Island Closest To Hell’s observation outpost, located a little way inland from the island itself. she was sat behind a wall of monitors with a laptop computer running in front of her as well. The screens up before her offered her unrivalled views of every single part of the island, part of a network of surveillance cameras that not many people knew about. The scientists who’d set the island up had installed them to allow them to track the creatures roaming the landscape, but tonight Quistis was using them to keep a watchful eye on her students.
Leaving them stranded on the island like this had been a plan she’d deliberated over for some time – it was dangerous for them, and it was going against most of her instructor’s instincts to abandon her charges like this, but with the cameras keeping them within sight at all times and the added security of the tracking devices she was observing using the laptop, she felt in control of the situation. And besides, she’d decided that they needed to practice working as a team together without her watching their every move – well, without them knowing that she was watching their every move, at least. At the moment the trio were practising basic survival techniques – they were constructing a shelter using the plentiful natural resources, and Quistis had to admit she was impressed with the tactics they were using – Criss was chopping trees down and Katya was catching them as they fell using some levitation spells, so that Criss and Cevin could break them up as needed and carry them to the site they’d picked.
The outpost assistant who she was working with brought in two mugs of coffee and handed one to Quistis. She thanked him and sipped it while she scanned the monitors. The monsters on the island wouldn’t give them any trouble unless they drew attention to themselves, so if the students were smart enough to realise that then everything would be just fine.
"What was that?" whispered Katya. She was huddled up inside the shelter, her SeeD uniform’s jacket zipped up tight and stretched out to try and warm her up a little more. Between the three of them, they’d managed to cut down a few trees and use both the wood and the leaves to make a small, three person refuge from the approaching cool night winds, the entrance to which faced out towards the heart of the island’s jungle so that they had time to spot anything sniffing around. Criss had remembered to make sure they were downwind too, to avoid the scent of a trio of juicy meat snacks carrying into the nostrils of any nearby predators. It hadn’t helped Redman’s nerves much, however, and she was still jumping a mile out of her skin at the slightest noise. The one she’d just mentioned was a rustle in the jungle foliage up ahead. Criss scanned through the gloom but saw nothing.
"Just the wind," he said reassuringly. McClewen was still fuming to himself, shaken out of his brooding by Criss laying a hand gently on his shoulder. Cevin’s left hand shot up in a reflex action to strike out before he realised it was just Criss and relaxed.
"Jeez, don’t do that to me, man. I’m a finely tuned killing machine, remember, one wrong move and fwipp!" He snapped his fingers together for emphasis. "I’d have your head clean off."
"No, you wouldn’t," said Brendan calmly, and one look into his eyes told Cevin that he was being honest. Cevin shrugged off the cool confidence of his classmate and hugged his knees again.
"One thing I am going to do is cause Instructor Quistis some serious pain when she shows her face around here again," he muttered darkly. "This has to be the stupidest stunt anyone’s ever tried to pull on us, worse even than that time when Instructor Kudlow set a wendigo loose in our classroom." McClewen was jolted again by a slap on the shoulder from Redman.
"Wake up, stupid," she scolded, "this is one of those crappy ‘team-building’ exercises," she said, using her fingers to mime the quotation marks. "We’re supposed to come out of the other end of this more focused as a team, or whatever."
"The last thing I want to do is get focused at the moment!" snapped back Cevin. "What I want to do is get some sleep so I’ll be ready when she gets here." He hunkered down and curled up in one corner of the shelter, eyes closed. Redman and Brendan exchanged a look, and Katya sighed as she joined Criss at the entrance.
"He may have a point there, I can’t be sure but I think it’s getting pretty close to midnight already. We were here with Quistis for most of the day anyway, and I think we’ve been here alone for about two hours now."
"I’ll keep first watch then," said Criss, turning to her with a rare smile. "Get some rest." Katya smiled brightly – she wasn’t used to seeing Criss look like he was enjoying himself, but it put her at ease straight away.
"Right. If anything shows up and I hear some girlish screaming, I’ll assume it’s Cevin and wake up to save you both." She lay down at the back of the shelter and laid her jacket over herself as a makeshift blanket.
"I know you would, phoenix," said Criss as he watched her doze off. She didn’t hear the nickname he’d given her and just shuffled around as she tried to get comfortable. He turned his attention back to the jungle and checked his gunblade. Not much ammo left, best save it just in case. He dropped the shells into his pocket but came across something else as he did so. Lifting the item out for a closer look, he saw it was his SeeD ID card, but in the low gloom he could make out a very faint red light flashing on the reverse. He examined it more closely – it appeared to be some kind of small circuit board, and as he looked he could just about make out a brand name on it – TrackTech. Criss grinned. TrackTech were a world leader in small, discreet tracking devices and surveillance equipment. Seemed that Quistis hadn’t left them alone completely after all. He slipped the ID card back into his pocket, deciding that the other two didn’t need to know what he’d just found out. That way they’d learn the most from the exercise.
Back at the observation post, Quistis watched with alarm as a pack of anacondaurs slithered their way towards the shelter. They were just patrolling randomly, on the lookout for a meal, buts he’d watched Redman and McClewen go to sleep so if Criss didn’t spot them in time, things could get ugly. Anacondaurs had a poisonous bite as well as the strength they used to wrap themselves around a victim and literally crush the life out of them. A couple was within Brendan’s abilities but Quistis had counted five of them, and the noise from the fight was sure to attract more creatures. She stood up, ready to race to the helipad at a moment’s notice, but continued watching as the creatures drew closer.
Brendan had picked up the large snake-like monsters a little while earlier, and was watching from the shadows of the shelter, motionless, as they swished noiselessly through the long grass. For a moment it looked as though they’d pass right by, until one stopped and turned towards the shelter, its thick tongue flickering in and out as it smelt the air. Without taking his eyes off the creature, Brendan reached out a hand and gently shook Katya awake. She murmured softly as she came round before seeing Criss holding up a finger for her to be silent. She got up very carefully and followed his gaze to the pack of monsters outside. She nudged McClewen with her boot who snorted once and sat up with a grunt. The noise made two more of the creatures stop and listen, and Criss cursed inwardly.
Cevin sat up and was about to speak when Katya clamped her hand across his mouth. She waved a finger to say no, then pointed outside, raising the five fingers on her left hand to signal what was out there. Cevin looked and grinned, cracking his knuckles loudly at the prospect of some action. The noise unfortunately alerted the remaining two anacondaurs, and the pack started to advance on the hideout, tongues smelling the air to locate their prey. Criss threw a quick glare at Cevin before grabbing up his gunblade and tensing, ready to lead the attack. He was half a second from jumping out of the shelter and in to the attack when Katya suddenly grabbed his arm. He looked round at her, but she was staring ahead at something else, and used her other hand to motion that he and Cevin should back down.
As they did so, they watched the anacondaurs spread out and start to encircle their target – a large, fat rodent scurrying through the undergrowth and trying to escape its pursuers. The trio watched as nature took its course, and the monsters pounced on the unfortunate creature, one encircling it and crushing it and the others starting to tear chunks away from it. McClewen sagged and sat down with a welcome sigh, and they watched as the anacondaurs disappeared into the night again with their prize.
"Thanks, Kat, we owe you one," said Cevin to break the silence.
"Yeah, that could have been very messy," seconded Criss. Katya shrugged and returned to her sleeping position at the rear of the shelter.
"It was nothing, I just cast a quick scanning spell and picked up that little rat thing, and I figured the anacondaurs were going for that instead." She settled down to rest again. "G’night." Cevin looked at Brendan, a proud smile on his face before he too curled up again to sleep. Criss looked up at the sky. The stars and moon were out now, casting a little light on their surroundings. He returned to his vigil, listening out again for any more tell-tale sounds.
Quistis breathed a sigh of relief herself and sat down again. If nothing else, they were proving they could look out for each other and also not squabble anywhere near as much as most teams did. Cevin was still pretty hot-headed at times but the other two were starting to be able to keep him in check. There wasn’t an obvious team leader at the moment, as Katya and Criss both proved to have the right stuff at various times, but Quistis got the impression that once they’d forgiven her for dumping them there overnight, she could carry on with the last phase of the training she’d planned out for them and then they’d be ready for the exam. She stretched to wake up her tired muscles and swirled the last few drops of coffee round in the bottom of her mug, before slurping them down. Only a few hours till the sun came up, so at first light she’d head out to the island’s landing pad and take them back to Garden.
True to her word, as the first fingers of sunlight plied their way through the dense canopy of foliage above the student’s shelter, the sound of an approaching helicopter started to reverberate round the island, and Brendan was one of the first people moving out to see it. Using his hand to shield his eyes from the sun, he watched Quistis’ chopper circle the island once and then come in to land. Katya and Cevin, roused by the noise, joined him at the lip of the jungle to watch her land. The helicopter landed and powered down, and Quistis stepped out of the passenger side door. She remained by the helicopter and called out to the students.
"Well! It seems you’re all alive and well, so I’m pleased to announce that we can move on to the last stage of your training. And let me assure you, this phase will give you ample opportunity to take any payback on me you feel is necessary for this little survival exercise." Nobody moved. Quistis put her hands on her hips and tutted impatiently, but the students took the hint at this and started to head along the walkway towards the landing pad.
"That was a pretty mean thing to do to us," said Redman as she passed and climbed into the rear section of the helicopter.
"Mean, yes. Effective, yes. I’m very proud of you all."
"It was actually kinda fun," said Cevin. "But not the kind of fun I’d like to have a lot of. What did you mean when you said we could ‘take some payback,’ Instructor?"
"You’ll see," grinned Quistis. "Everything alright, Criss?" she asked as he walked by. He just nodded.
"Insomniac boy here stayed up on watch all night," shouted Redman as the chopper’s engine started up again. "He was too daft to wake us up to change over." Brendan shrugged.
"It was a nice night, didn’t want to miss it," he said. Quistis shook her head and leapt back into the passenger seat. As the helicopter took off and started back towards the Garden, she turned round and spoke to the students, all of them wearing headphones to hear one another.
"That was, believe it or not, a legitimate combat training exercise. There will be times during your career when you will be left, without notice, in a hostile environment and expected to fend for yourself. Your troop carrier may be destroyed, your squad may be forced to pull out and not be able to wait for you, or you could just get separated from the rest of your unit. The fact that I left you three in one of the most inhospitable and hostile environments in the world, and that you’re all here now in one piece, won’t be forgotten. Top marks all round." Quistis saw Brendan playing absently with his ID card, and for a second thought he threw a quick glance of acknowledgement at her, but it was too quick to be certain.
"So what’s next, Instructor?" asked Redman. Quistis smiled.
"You’ll like this part. You get a few days off, first thing. Then, the last thing we’re doing before I decide whether or not to recommend you to Headmaster Cid for the field exam is a little combat training."
"What’ll we be doing this time?" said McClewen.
"Each of you will go one-on-one against me," she said, and turned back round to let that sink in. It was a bold move on her part, it would either set the level of respect between them for good or destroy the confidence she’d worked so hard to build. It was a risk Quistis was willing to take, however, because the only way she’d know for sure if they were ready would be to fight each one of them herself.
They were back at the Garden soon afterwards, and Quistis headed back to her quarters as the three students went their separate ways, with an order to meet back up in two days time. Quistis flopped onto her bed, drained from a night without sleep watching the students, and slept soundly, her dreams thankfully keeping quiet while her batteries recharged themselves.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Rain. Typical. The one day I have to really make a show of everything, to really put all my years experience to the test and take on possibly the most talented bunch of potential SeeDs I’ve ever seen, and it starts chucking it down with rain the moment I step outside, thought Quistis bitterly as she pulled her jacket collar up to try and stop the steady trickle of rainwater down the back of her neck. She’d managed to get the rest of the playing fields largely to herself for today, and she’d led her three students out to the rockier hills just past the field’s limits, just in case this all got a little out of hand. She passed the spot where Seifer and Squall had put each other in the infirmary and grinned to herself at the dramatic irony of it all – she was going to go up against a gunblade expert herself soon. She wondered if Squall could have lent her any tips.
"Right then, class!" said Quistis, turning to the three cadets as they reached a flatter area. The greens of the playing fields were a little way behind, and the rocky plains around them were a good place to start. Quistis could see crowds of cadets sneaking over to get a closer look but didn’t bring the cadets’ attention to it. "The object of today’s hopefully final exercise in your training is simple. Attack me with everything you’ve got. I’ll be grading you on speed, ferocity, tactics, the usual," she said as she paced up and down in front of them. They were also all in full SeeD uniform, shivering a little under the light but cold drizzle spraying across the fields and plains in the early morning breeze. It was just after 9am, and Quistis hoped to wrap this up by lunchtime if all went to plan.
"Which one of us goes first?" asked McClewen. Quistis grinned at him.
"Since you posed the question, McClewen, you can start." Cevin grinned and cracked his knuckles together. "Remember the rules. Don’t pull your punches and don’t hesitate to attack. Treat me like any other opponent out to disable you. I’ll be doing my best to take you down, you have to prove your combat skills to me. Ready?"
"I was born ready," said Cevin. The two struck up relaxed stances about ten feet apart, with Criss and Katya sitting down to watch. Quistis drew her whip and held it loose by her side, watching Cevin limber up and stretch his muscles.
"Whenever you’d like to start, McClewen," said Quistis with a mock yawn. Katya chuckled. With a final twist of his neck Cevin sprang into action, rushing forward to close the distance between the two of them as quick as possible. Quistis hopped neatly back and snapped her whip against the ground, kicking up a spray of dirt that hit Cevin in the face. As he skidded to a halt and began to wipe his eyes, he was surprised by a swift boot to his sternum and then a shove as Quistis threw him neatly to the ground. She stood back and waited while he picked himself up, wheezing.
"Remember, class," she said, addressing all three, "your enemy will use every means necessary to gain an advantage over you. Always keep an eye on your surroundings as well as who you’re fighting, they can be used against you if you’re not careful. Cevin, ready to continue?"
"Just a minute," he wheezed, leaning forwards with his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. Quistis smirked.
"Of course, in a real fight you wouldn’t get breaks, but you’re just warming up so I’ll forgive you," she said. Cevin coughed once and nodded to signal he was ready. He ran to the attack again but this time zig-zagged towards Quistis, dodging two whip strikes before getting close enough.
He started with a flurry of punches and chops, which Quistis used both her arms and whip handle to block or fend off, striking back herself when she could. Both combatants took a few blows before Quistis dropped to the ground and knocked Cevin off his feet with a low sweeping kick. He flipped back to his feet then backflipped completely to dodge and incoming whip crack. Once back on his feet, he leapt in the air for a kick, but Quistis sidestepped, grabbed his outstretched leg and flung him to the ground. As he crashed down she went to stamp on his hand, but Cevin rolled out of the way. Quistis paused as he picked himself up to address everyone again.
"Watch out for dirty moves like that, too. You should identify which parts of your attacker’s body are his most useful and disable them. Weapon users or fist fighters lose a lot of power if you disable their hands," she said.
Cevin tried a different approach this time, edging forward and ducking and weaving to avoid Quistis’ whip. When he was within range, he hunched down and leapt forward, tackling Quistis off her feet in one sudden spring. She tried to roll back but he clamped his legs down on her, holding her in place as he raised a fist to strike her. He paused, ready to strike a knockout blow but with a grin on his face.
"I take it this is a good time to hold it," he said. Quistis grinned.
"Very good so far, you demonstrated you could work out how I’d attack and adjusted your approach to suit. But I said to never hesitate, didn’t I?" she said, snapping one knee up squarely into Cevin’s groin. He gulped once, turned very pale and toppled sideways off her. She stood up, dusted herself down and held out a hand to help him to his feet.
"That was.. very.. very, very.. very sneaky of you.." he managed, obviously in some discomfort.
"I could have reached up and broken your neck with my legs if I’d wanted to," she said, "I think you got off lightly. Very good work though, Cevin, consider me impressed. Apart from that one mistake at the end top marks all round."
Katya slapped him on the shoulder with a giggle, but he was still too busy making sure he was in full working order. Criss stood up.
"Me next," he said calmly. Quistis gathered up her whip and stepped back a few paces.
"Okay then, Brendan, show me what you’ve got," she said, striking a defensive pose, half crouched and whip ready to flash out with one snap of her wrist. Brendan closed his eyes, almost meditating for a few moments before adopting a similar stance, gunblade held above his head. The rain had eased a little but was still dripping off them both, and Quistis’ eyes narrowed as she started to feel the concentration Brendan was drawing into himself.
Without a word he leapt forward, swinging his blade round in a slow arc which Quistis easily deflected with her whip. Without pausing, he span round and swung the gunblade round from the other direction, forcing Quistis to duck and roll neatly to avoid it. He hopped forward again, bringing the blade down towards her head, but Quistis was ready for it.
Copying a move she’d seen Squall pull off once, she grabbed the blade out of the air between her palms, and in the split second that Brendan hesitated after that, she flipped it to the side and out of the path of her head. A whip handle cracked across his knuckles made Criss drop the weapon, which she calmly booted away. It slid several feet away across the increasingly muddy ground, but Brendan leapt back and took up a defensive stance again, rather than risk losing a hand diving after the sword. Quistis sidestepped and put herself between Criss and the gunblade.
"That’s always a good tactic when faced with an opponent whose weapon is better than yours – get rid of it!" she said, and Criss nodded.
"And then prevent them from getting it back," he said, the cocky grin starting to spread cross his face a sure sign that his other, rarely seen personality was starting to surface. "At least, try to," he finished, and with a shout he jumped to the attack again.
The two of them danced through the air, sending fists and feet arcing round high and low, weaving, ducking and dodging each other, neither landing a blow for what seemed like several long minutes. Eventually, Criss saw a gap and lunged towards the ground, rolling as he hit and narrowly missing the barb of Quistis’ whip as she cracked it after him. He grabbed the blade and span round, using it to deflect two more whip strikes before assuming his defensive stance again.
Very good, thought Quistis, defensive play to make me move first. She knew a few tricks about that, however, and put one of them into use as she snapped her whip to the left, forcing Criss to duck, but it was a shallow attack and as he swung his blade round to her seemingly undefended side she brought the whip tearing back across his path at dizzying speed, so fast he barely had time to see it coming. Even if he had, he had no time to get out of the way.
Brendan crashed heavily to the ground, his blade skittering away out of his hands again. He got back up as far as his knees, panting with exertion and raised his hand to signal he was done. Quistis held out a hand and helped him to his feet.
"Very, very good, Brendan," she said as he went and sat back down next to a by now very nervous looking Katya, "intelligent attack and focused at all times. And that trick I pulled to beat you is the sort you only fall for once, make sure you remember it. Katya, you’re next," she said, gathering up her whip and taking a stand again. Katya gulped and stood, walking over to face off against Quistis.
Quistis was trying very hard not to break a sweat. So far, she’d managed it pretty well – she hadn’t given away to Cevin or Criss just how close they’d come to beating her – until he paused at the end Cevin had the opportunity to knock her out cold, and the last move against Brendan was only thanks to reflexes on her part. Katya would be a different matter entirely, and she wasn’t 100% sure she could beat the young magic user. The key here was making sure Redman didn’t focus her powers effectively – Quistis wanted her to learn that in order to get the most out of her skills she had to concentrate on them more, and this battle would prove that. So far, she’d taught the other two their final lessons – don’t let your guard down and expect the unexpected. Now she had about five seconds to work out how to teach Katya the art of control before the wannabe sorceress wiped the floor with her..
Katya started by clasping her hands together, eyes closed, drawing up any stray magical energy around her. The fields of Balamb were quite rich with the magical essences which those individuals lucky enough to know how to use them could gather up and form into a wide variety of spells, although luckily for Quistis the essences round here weren’t of the same power level as places like the Island Closest To Hell. As green beads of light started to materialise out of the air round Katya, however, Quistis started to crouch down, ready to duck and dive whatever attack came her way.
Katya’s hair started to billow out around her as though facing a strong breeze, although despite the rain there was no real wind out on the fields at the moment. The balls of light gathered around Katya’s clasped hands and became one solid shape, and as Redman opened her eyes Quistis tensed as she saw a grin spread across the cadet’s face.
The bolt shot out from her hands suddenly, hurtling towards Quistis and tearing a jagged rift in the ground behind it. Quistis threw herself to the side an dodged it, but knew better than to stay there and was up on her feet and running before a volley of bolts of lightning zapped into the ground after her. The storm overhead intensified, fuelled by the energies Redman was throwing about, but Katya was too busy concentrating on her target.
Quistis took advantage of this, hopping close enough to Katya to send out a quick whip strike at her legs which knocked the young mage to the ground. The green energy was dispelled as her concentration broke, and Quistis used the respite in the offensive to catch her breath while Katya picked herself back up.
"Excellent, Redman, but you have to be careful about leaving yourself open to strikes like that. All it takes is for your opponent to break your concentration once and you’re finished. There are ways around that, so let’s see if we can’t bring those out of you. let’s start over, but this time, try to stop me from attacking when I get close enough," said Quistis, assuming her stance again as Katya nodded, dusted off the dirt she’d picked up from the ground and closed her eyes to concentrate again. This time, blue energy started to form out of the air around her, with lines of yellow essence flowing from the ground by her feet to create a much more striking green ball of light before her hands. Katya’s lips were moving – Quistis realised she was using mantras to aid her focus, trying to shape the forces around her into what she wanted rather than just using what they gave to her.
Redman’s eyes flicked open, but by the time her first attack was away Quistis was already moving, closing the distance between the two and leaping to avoid the gouts of flame Katya threw at her. As she drew within whip range, Katya changed her stance to a defensive one suddenly, and moved one forearm in a circular motion around her. The energy before her switched from green to red, tracing her arm’s movements, and as Quistis’ whip snaked out it struck the red field before Katya with as solid a ‘thunk’ as if she’d attacked a brick wall.
Quistis braked and skidded to a halt, a faint smile on her lips. She knew that if she pressured Katya she’d force her to act on instinct instead of trying to show off, and that the magical essences pouring through her would start to guide her actions almost unconsciously. She’d seen Rinoa surrender herself to them during many battles once the teenager had learned of her powers as a sorceress, and despite the loss of a degree of conscious control, as long as you kept your head together you could let the magic do the work for you.
Indeed, as Quistis tried a few more exploratory attacks with her whip, but Katya moved as though Quistis was moving in slow motion, having the forcefield in place to block before the whip was even halfway there. There were a few more things she could try to see if she could break through her defences, before Katya worked out how to-
Quistis felt her stomach drop away, and as she looked down realised she was lifting off the floor. The faint glow around her feet showed her that Katya had worked out how to do what Quistis both hoped and feared – she could use an offensive power at the same time as defending herself. Quistis braced herself for impact, then closed her eyes as she felt herself rushing through the air.
She slammed hard into the muddy ground seconds later, rolling with the impact but feeling a sharp pain in her shoulder that felt like a torn muscle. Time to wrap this up a little. Quistis stood and raised a hand to stop the fight, just as Katya launched a black ball of energy at her. The collected crowd, now having crept to within a few metres of the battleground, gasped, but in the silence that followed, and as Quistis opened her eyes, she saw that Redman had paused the black blob inches away from her outstretched hand. She grinned and nodded once to Redman, who waved her hand once and dispelled the offending magics, which popped out of the air with a sound effect to match.
"I think," said Quistis, trying not to grimace from the worsening burning sensation in her damaged shoulder, "that we can safely wrap thing sup. There’ll be a formal declaration later, but for now, class, you’ve passed your training, and I’ll recommend to Headmaster Cid that we get you down to take your final field exam in the next few days. Class dismissed." Katya received the congratulations of her colleagues, followed by a cheer and a round of applause from the watching crowd, which had swelled to include dozens of cadets. Quistis let the cadets have their moment and started to walk back to the pavilion to change back into her civvies, waiting until she was safely out of sight before tenderly removing her jacket and shirt and testing her shoulder.
Yup, she thought as the searing pain almost made her cry out, settling instead with banging her free fist against the changing room wall, that’s definitely torn. Quistis made a note to go see Dr. Kadowaki at the infirmary once she was changed. She took the moment to sit back and reflect on the battles for a second. McClewen and Brendan had both come within moments of defeating her, but if she hadn’t pulled the plug on Redman’s fight when she did, they could well be scraping bits of instructor up off the floor by now. One thing I’m sure of, she thought as she packed her uniform away. Those kids are ready.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me how you got this?" asked Dr. Kadowaki as she gently massaged some soothing ralgexelite into Quistis’ wounded shoulder. Quistis just grinned at her.
"Training. It was worth it," she said. She’d gone to the infirmary to see the doc and get her shoulder checked out. Kadowaki had confirmed that she’d torn a ligament, a result of the heavy fall she’d taken during her battle against Katya Redman. The infirmary was still as pleasant as it had ever been, a clinical room but augmented by the open windows and lush greenery outside, bringing a gentle breeze and the scents of the outdoors in at all times. The office also faced towards the coastline, so the distant taste of sea spray and salt water drifted in from time to time as well. The rain outside had eased off but had left a deliciously moist texture to the air, aided by the almost tropical heat Kadowaki liked to keep the place at.
Quistis was sat up on the raised bed in the middle of the room as Kadowaki fussed over her. The matronly chief of medicine at the Garden was used to seeing all manner of injuries caused by over-zealous training exercises, but she expressly forbid the use of magic to heal anything in her office. It wasn’t natural, she always said, and wasn’t any good long term for the body to keep artificially sustaining it past the point of heavy injury.
Luckily, today Quistis wasn’t hurt too badly. Kadowaki advised her to rest the arm up and not take it on any exercises till it was healed. As Quistis gingerly pulled her arm back through the sleeve of her longsleeve top, Kadowaki leaned against the sink she’d just washed her hands in and addressed the young instructor.
"So how are things so far?" Quistis smirked.
"I’d forgotten you were the only person I hadn’t really seen since I got back," she said. Kadowaki nodded sadly.
"I only tend to see people when they’re bashed up or unconscious these days, it doesn’t make for great conversation. I take it you’ve settled in well with that new class?"
"Perfectly well. It took a few weeks to get a handle on how to deal with them, but after today I can safely recommend them all for the field exam."
"That confident?"
"Oh, absolutely. They’re all massively talented kids at what they do, they just needed a little focus and discipline. I think I’ve got all I’m going to get out of them in that respect," she said, hopping down off the bed.
"I’ve heard about what happened at that village you were in for a while," added Kadowaki. "I was sorry to hear about that poor Justin chap." Quistis hesitated for a second then tried to carry on. She hadn’t really had time to think about Justin since she’d moved back, although all things considered that was probably just as well.
"That’s in the past now. I miss him, I think about him almost every day when I’m not trying not to get killed by my students," she said, sharing a grin with Kadowaki, "but there’s nothing I could have done to help him. I tried for a while but it made me realise I wasn’t helping myself." Kadowaki nodded and hugged Quistis lightly, avoiding her damaged arm.
"You take care of yourself and I’ll speak to you again soon," she said as Quistis left. The walk back to her quarters was filled with memories of Setton, and the weeks she’d spent trying to clear the town up after Justin’s death. Swiping her keycard and entering her room, Quistis elected to just get some rest and then go spend the night with her fellow instructors. There was a party at Dallara’s brother’s house so they were all piling into taxis and heading for Balamb town in about four hours. Quistis set her alarm and dozed off lightly, the pitter-patter of rain on her window proving to be a soothing soundtrack.
Her dreams were less than soothing. A flashback to the Dollet mission kept playing out in front of her, mainly the scene where she was manning the deck guns of the troop carriers to defend Squall and the others as they raced across the beach to safety. This time, Redman, Brendan and McClewen were in front of her, running across a never-ending beach, around the bodies of dozens of anonymous dead SeeD cadets and with the monstrous XATMOS killing machine in hot pursuit. Quistis was shouting them on towards the waiting troop carrier, its bay doors open and waiting for the cadets to leap on board. Despite the fact that the explosions all around her seemed to suggest she was in the middle of a warzone, Quistis’ ship was the only one on the beach, that seemed to stretch of for miles in either direction.
Redman was at the back of the trio, valiantly flinging blue bolts of electrical energy at the XATMOS but to no avail. As Quistis watched in horror, it pierced her to the ground with one of its huge metal legs/ Redman cried out once and was then still, but the machine didn’t pause or break its approach, instead clunking onwards towards the remaining two cadets, Redman’s blood glistening on one of its legs. McClewen was next closest, and with a yell to Brendan to keep going he turned and stood his ground against the monster. Leaping into the air and onto its head, his fists started to bleed with exertion as he pounded at the machine’s faceplate, trying to get through to the pilots inside. A blaze of yellow power ran across the machine’s surface, throwing Cevin into the air like a leaf in a hurricane. He landed in a heap further along the beach and didn’t get back up.
Quistis yelled to Brendan to hurry the hell up as the unstoppable robot steamed towards him. She opened up with the deck guns, peppering its front with bullet holes but not slowing it down. The troop carrier started to back away from the beach gradually, and Quistis screamed at Criss to jump for it. He leapt into the air, one arm outstretched to grab onto the ship, but in the blink of an eye the XATMOS shot forward one of it’s legs, impaling Criss through his chest. His expression didn’t change from the one of shock he’d worn the whole way down the beach, and as Quistis reached out to him the carrier continued to pull away, her fingers scraping at empty air just inches away from Brendan’s hand. She was pulled back out of reach, and the XATMOS lowered the skewered cadet to the ground with an air of finality. As the scene faded into the distance, Quistis collapsed on the deck of the boat and sobbed.
She awoke in tears, seeing on the alarm that she’d slept for four solid hours and that her pillow and bedclothes were stained with the tracks of her tears. She sat up in bed and hugged her knees for comfort, trying to banish all thoughts of the horrific nightmare. deciding that getting ready for tonight would be the best thing to do, she got up and headed over to her wardrobe.
An hour and a half later, Quistis was sharing a taxi with Dallara and Xu on the way over to the house party in question. Quistis was trying to take it easy on her arm, but as she was unlikely to do anything other than raise glasses to her mouth for most of the night she was sure she’d be fine. Xu and Dallara were nattering to each other but Quistis wasn’t really listening, staring instead absently out of the window as lights flickered past on their way through the outskirts of town. she became aware of somebody talking to her and dragged herself back to alertness.
"Sorry, what?" she said, knowing she’d been addressed but not by whom.
"I said, so do you think you might be getting any action tonight, Q!" said Dallara with a cheeky grin. Dallara had made it a mission of hers to get Quistis set up with someone ever since she’d returned to the Garden, stating to anybody who’d listen that ‘she’s a nice girl who just needs some cheering up.’ Quistis, of course, wanted none of this and was quite happy each day to wake up, do her lessons with the class and then go back to bed in the evening, but Dallara was the sort of girl who wouldn’t let up on an idea once she’d gotten it into her head, and her current idea was that Quistis Needed A Man.
"I don’t know, I’m not looking, remember?" she said, which Dallara answered with a chuckle.
"That’s how it gets you, you wait and wait and wait, then when you’re least expecting something to happen, then pow! There it is.."
"Not everyone’s as boy crazy as you are, you know," said Xu, coming to Quistis’ aid.
"Well, no, but we still have certain needs that need fulfilment every now and then, if you know what I mean," she said with a wink. Xu sighed and Quistis went back to looking blankly out the window and not thinking about anything. She was dressed modestly considering the evening – a maroon t-shirt with the logo of her favourite motorbike manufacturer on the front, and a pair of casually loose fitting combat trousers, the ones reserved for smart occasions. Dallara, on the other hand, was dressed for action in a short, pleated skirt and a red shirt undone to halfway, to show off the generous cleavage the creator had seen fit to gift her with. Xu always dressed to emphasise her slim figure, with a long, backless dark purple dress and her long, dark hair loose around her shoulders. Quistis always felt a little self conscious out with these two – Xu had an air of elegant beauty while Dallara just made sure she looked hot enough to burn at the slightest touch, so Quistis tended to dress inbetween the two of them. Reasonably smart but not letting everything hang out either..
When they arrived at the houseparty a few minutes later, Quistis was glad for a chance to disappear off into her own little world for a while. She liked having people around her, but the fact that she’d only know a handful of people here would make it easier for her to pick the moments when she was going to be sociable.
Dallara’s brother came bounding down the steps to his house, an impressively-sized building with a commanding view of the local countryside. The rest of the street was quiet, like most of Balamb’s residential areas, with trees lining a picturesque road with a small number of large, expensive looking houses. All the noise and activity was definitely centred on the house, however – every single light seemed to be on inside and Quistis could make out at least three different songs playing at once from various sections of the place.
"Hey! Hey, hey there, how you doing," said Kyrick, Dallara’s brother, shaking hands and nodding greetings all round. He was an office boy with a healthy interest in recreational activities – rock climbing, canoeing, all sorts of high energy physical stuff that left Quistis feeling exhausted just by the thought of it.
"Evening, Ky," said Quistis, having her knuckles squeezed by the energetic guy and following the other two girls up the steps and into the house. Inside, the place was heaving with people, and what was once a nice, tidy middle class home had been transformed into one part dancefloor, one part crowd with a multitude of people standing around drinking, talking, laughing and dancing. Thunderous music boomed out of speakers placed strategically round the house, and Quistis realised that she knew hardly anybody here, which was both a good and a bad thing. Conversations with random strangers were a lot easier the fewer people you actually knew were there too.
Xu and Dallara headed for the kitchen to get some drinks, with Quistis in tow. Kyrick’s house was actually surprisingly pleasantly furnished for a guy’s bachelor pad – Quistis got the impression a few of his past lovers had left their touches round the place and he’d never gotten round to removing them. The kitchen was all white surfaces and pine cupboards, but currently home to about thirty assorted bottles of spirits and nearly a hundred or so empty glasses. The sink was piled high with plates, giving the feeling that the party had started many hours earlier over food. Outside in the garden, people had arranged chairs and tables into little groups as well and were busy doing the mingling thing Quistis was so poor at. If Xu and Dallara were social butterflies, Quistis was one that had been pinned inside a glass case and hung on a wall in a room nobody ever went into.
She was roused from pondering on that analogy by Xu holding out a shot glass of suspiciously coloured liquid to her. Quistis held it to her nose and sniffed once, experimentally. Whatever had been mixed into it was masking the tell tale alcohol scent that would warn her how strong it was, which judging by the cheeky grin on Xu’s face she knew full well.
"On a scale of paint stripper to molten lava.." said Quistis, raising an eyebrow to get a reply. Xu just smiled and shook her head.
"No guesses, just drink. On three, ready? One, two, three!" The girls dutifully necked the shots as one, and as one coughed and spluttered. Xu fanned herself while Quistis just waited for her eyes to stop rolling. Dallara smacked her lips together, whooped once and grabbed a bottle of something off the table.
"Come on, girls! Time to let our hair down and part-ay!" she said, disappearing into the next room. The crowds of people parted and swallowed her up, leaving Xu and Quistis in the kitchen again.
"Are you gonna be alight tonight? I know parties aren’t really your thing but I figured you could do with letting off some steam after the week you've had." Quistis nodded and searched out a glass to pour out some beer for herself.
"I did have kind of a rough one, you’re right," she said. Xu patted her on the shoulder.
"The entire darn Garden is talking about the mano a mano you had with those three cadets of yours, it’ll go down in legend, I think!" Xu headed out for the main room with Quistis following.
"Of course, nobody here tonight will know about that so you can be safe in your anonymity," she said with a grin. Quistis returned it and followed Xu out into the living room.
A few hours into the party and Quistis had found herself a nice little spot. The house had three floors and a balcony, accessible through a skylight in the roof. She was perched on that, her feet dangling down into the house below but with a view of everyone in the garden out back and pretty much every room in the house as well. There were two empty glasses next to her in addition to the third she was currently sipping, Xu being her barmaid for the night and bringing her top-ups when needed. She was starting to relax at long last, peoplewatching and letting the party’s atmosphere rise into the night air and soak through her pores, washing away the stress of the last few days at last. Plus, up here she could say hello to people and have brief conversations with them as they passed her, but she didn’t have to worry about making small talk for too long.
That was, until he decided to show up..
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Mind if I sit here?" came a voice from over Quistis’ shoulder. She jumped, having been lost merrily in her own thoughts up to that point. She turned to see the source of the announcement, and was met by a spiky-haired blonde guy who was crouching down next to her. He must have walked up onto the balcony past her and then hunched down next to her without her even noticing.
"Erm, sure," she said, shuffling across a little to give the new guy some room. She was a little miffed at having to give up her spot like this, but if the guy turned out to be a jerk she’d just scoot off somewhere else and leave him to it.
"Oh, pardon me, allow me to introduce myself," he said, holding out a hand to her. "The name’s Vaughn, Vaughn Trevelyan." Quistis shook his hand but couldn’t stop herself grinning at his unusual name. He picked up on it straight away and grinned back. "Yeah, that’s how people normally react to the name. You can call me just Vaughn, it’ll be easier on everyone." Quistis chuckled, the guy seemed nice enough but she kept her alarm system on standby from him. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to be hit on tonight or not, so she was going to see how this worked out first and make her mind up later. There was still the small matter of Justin, and Justin-related thought, bubbling round the dark recesses of her psyche to worry about
"So how are you enjoying the party tonight?" she asked. He sipped from his glass and motioned to the crowd.
"You know, I don’t know any of these people," he said, and Quistis laughed, the tension having been broken. "I just showed up because I thought I knew a guy downstairs but it turns out it was somebody else. So I’ve been wandering around, getting free drinks all night and finding out that I look just like somebody called ‘Will’ that everybody seems to know."
"I came here with a couple of friends," said Quistis, pointing down to Dallara and Xu who were busy socialising down in the garden. Dallara in particular seemed close to seriously socialising with a jock-type guy who was busy trying to impress her. "That blonde girl is the sister of the guy whose party this is," Quistis said, "we’re just here to cut loose a little."
"Forgive me for being so bold, Miss.."
"Quistis."
"Quistis. Thanks. Forgive me for being so bold, but last time I checked sitting up on top of a house by yourself wasn’t exactly the dictionary definition of ‘cutting loose.’"
"And how would you know how I like to unwind?" said Quistis defensively. "Maybe this is my ideal night out, up here where I can dip into the party if I want to. I’m like a social sunbather with one toe in the water."
"You’re like somebody who’s forgotten how to enjoy themselves and is scared to try again," said Vaughn. Quistis turned to look at him, not sure whether he was being daringly cheeky or surprisingly truthful. His expression hadn’t changed from the guarded yet approachable grin he’d worn when he first sat down. Quistis looked the guy up and down, trying to work out a little more about him.
He was dressed in a pair of black trousers with a maroon shirt underneath a black jacket, a leather one that looked like it had seen better days. He was a wiry guy but was possibly into some kind of sport, he had that kind of unassumingly lean yet muscular physique.
"How would you suggest I reignite the spark of my now extinct social life then, o wise one?" she said. He grinned again.
"Come back downstairs with me and hang out, I think you’ll enjoy it. If you’re anything like me, you work much better socially when you’re a bit more, you know, loosened up," he said. She nodded, looking out across the glittering city lights that were in clear view from the rooftop vantage point.
"Maybe.. maybe I just felt like having people around me without needing to have to talk to them for a change. Sometimes you want to be all alone in a room of friends," she said distantly. He snapped his fingers to drag her attention back to him. She wasn’t sure if she was irritated or intrigued by this guy - perhaps a bit of both.
"And sometimes you’d surprise yourself by stopping being such a gloomy goth girl and trying to have a little fun instead!" said Vaughn. Quistis was halfway towards telling this odd man to get lost when something about the look in his eyes caught her attention. Maybe it was some distant flicker of honesty, perhaps she just felt strangely interested in him, but whatever it was made her pause, then hold out a hand so that Vaughn could help her hop down from the skylight opening and onto the stairs leading back into the top floor of the house.
"There you go, that wasn’t so hard, was it?" he said as Quistis stepped elegantly down into the house.
"Don’t push your luck," she said, holding her glass close as she scanned the landing they were on warily. "I may yet still bolt for freedom if something scary comes along."
"Relax, allow me to show you the wonders of the human race," said Vaughn, sweeping her with one arm into a large upstairs room bustling with people. "I think you’ll like them if you give them a chance!" Quistis followed Vaughn into the room, allowing herself to be swallowed up by the crowd. She wasn’t great in crowds, she’d suspected it was a mild form of claustrophobia as much as anything else, but having somebody reasonably familiar close by was strangely comforting to her. Vaughn found a more open area next to a set of sofa chairs and ushered Quistis towards it.
"Hey, Will, good to see you!" somebody said as they bustled past. Vaughn raised his glass.
"Thanks, mate!" he replied.
"Who was that?" said Quistis.
"No idea, that’s been happening all night," he said. They shared a chuckle as they flopped down onto the sofas, which were welcomingly squishy. Quistis sighed and stretched out luxuriously.
"Now this I can handle," she said. "Good chairs and nobody bothering me."
"Well, nobody but me, anyway."
"You I think I can handle," she replied.
"Oh, do you know? How do you know I’m not some kind of crazed stalker who just happens to be very dashing and charming at the same time?" Quistis was sitting back with her eyes closed and didn’t open them to reply.
"If it came to that, I could take you in a fight no problem," she said calmly, with a hint of a grin on her lips. Vaughn laughed once.
"Ha! You seem very sure of yourself, what is it you do for a living exactly? Wendigo tamer? Do you drag anacondaurs out of rich people’s swimming pools?"
"I’m a Garden Instructor," she said. She waited a second for his reply. None came, so she opened one eye to see Vaughn grinning back at her.
"Right," he said sarcastically.
"I am!" protested Quistis. "I quit for a few months but now I’m back at work again, same as the girls I came here with, Xu and Dallara! Ask them!"
"How do I know you’re not all in on this together?" he said with a smirk. "I have to admit it’s a pretty good story, though. Must get you a few drinks." Quistis stared at him. Was he winding her up? Did he believe her or was he just testing her? By rights she should be out in the garden smacking this guy down by now, but at the same time she felt like he was just testing the water with her, trying to see if she was someone he’d like to get to know better. She decided to play along.
"Alright then, so what do you supposedly do for a living?"
"I’m a ranger in Balamb Forest," he said. "I trained as a vet but found the office life a bit too.. well, quiet, really. So now I work to protect the forest from the outside world, and the outside world from the forest." Quistis tried to think up a witty comeback but her brain was stuck in neutral and rolling down a steep hill with no handbrake.
"Uh-huh," was all she could manage, but she tried to make it as sarcastic a ‘uh-huh’ as she could.
"See, now you don’t believe me either," he said. "Looks like we’ll have to prove it to each other somehow."
"What did you have in mind?" Vaughn looked around the party then out one of the nearby windows. He beckoned Quistis with one finger.
"Follow me," he said, getting up and heading outside. Quistis followed, choosing not to listen to the alarm bells currently ringing off in her brain.
"You want me to do what?" she said incredulously.
"Get to the top of that tree," said Vaughn calmly. He pointed up to one of the tall, swaying redwood trees that lined Kyrick’s whole street. If there was one thing that could always be said about Balamb, it was that it had enough trees to cover the whole world if it wanted to share them.
"You’re having a laugh, aren’t you?" she said. "I’m not climbing a tree to prove to you that I’m a Garden teacher. Look, I even have an ID card in here somewhere," she said, starting to rifle through her bag. Vaughn finished the cigarette he’d lit as they’d gotten outside and just pointed to the tree again.
"No, deadly serious. We’re both physically fit people, right? Would go with the territory. So therefore clambering up a tree like that will be child’s play."
"I can’t believe this - do you actually think I’m going to do that just to satisfy you?" She stood, hands on hips, waiting for an answer. Vaughn just took off his jacket and rubbed his hands together to warm himself up. Quistis rolled her eyes and motioned to her clothes.
"I can’t exactly climb in this outfit, can I?"
"If your clothes get ruined I’ll buy you some new ones," he said. "I forgot to mention that I’m also fabulously wealthy. You see, my dad is the chief landowner of Balamb Forest as well. You ready?" Quistis’ mouth hung open. This brash little man was the heir to the Balamb Forest legacy? The forest was a prestigious area of local land that had been passed down over generations, it’s lineage including some of the most influential and respected figures of Balamb’s community past and present. And now him. This guy, who’d walked into her life and seemed intent on starting a tornado inside the well-tidied bedroom of her mind, and who was currently racing towards the first of the tall trees without waiting for her.
Quistis sighed and looked down at her clothes.
"Well, let’s hope he wasn’t lying about the being rich part," she said to them, before cracking her knuckles and reaching into her bag for the one thing that never left her side.
Vaughn was actually making good progress up the tree, and as she watched his face of concentration was evidence enough that he was most likely telling the truth. well, either that, or he was just damn good at tree climbing. Either way, it was time to show him who was boss.
Hmm, almost there, guess she was making it up after all, thought Vaughn with some disappointment as he neared the summit of the trees. He was about to look round for Quistis to shout some encouragement, when he was aware of a rustling in the leaves around him that wasn’t anything to do with the light evening breeze. It was followed by a ‘whoosh’ sound, and Vaughn instinctively ducked, thinking surreally for a moment that a low-flying aircraft was about to hit him. He looked around for the source of the noise but saw nothing, so he carried on climbing.
Reaching the last climbable branch a moment later, he looked up and saw with surprise Quistis on the adjacent tree, sitting demurely with her legs crossed on one of the thicker branches, idly picking a few stray bits of dirt out of her nails.
"Took your time, didn’t you?" she said. Vaughn just laughed out loud.
"I’d reach out to shake your hand but I think I’d probably fall," he said with a quick glance at the floor beneath them, "and I’d ask how you did that but I know you’d never tell me."
"Right on both counts. Come on," she said, "I’ll race you to the bottom."
Observers of the event, if there had been any besides a handful of local wildlife, would have seen the following - a young man running towards and starting to climb a tall, thickly branched tree, leaving a blonde lady behind. She paused, then retrieved something glittery and metal from her bag that looked suspiciously like a steel bullwhip. She aimed carefully then snapped it towards the second tree, swinging gracefully through the air and arcing upwards in an almost loop, landing on a branch several feet above the still climbing man, giving her time to take a seat and catch her breath before he arrived at the same point as she was.
Quistis had tried to pick out the best branch to support the tension of her move, and had reasoned that if it didn’t pay off there was plenty of soft ground to land on. That, and the fact that her adrenaline kicked in as soon as the thought of how to beat him entered her mind, and she didn’t really have a clue what she was doing from the moment she opened her bag to the moment she opened her eyes and breathed in again as she was sat at the top of the tree.
Of course, she reasoned on the way down, this may well be the start of a beautiful friendship. Or, alternatively, this could possibly lead to one of the most infuriating experiences of my life thus far. Either way, at least he’s good-looking, she reasoned, because if he wasn’t nice to look at this would all be a lot harder.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"So, anyway, I’m not back at work for a few days yet, my class recently took their initial final exam so they won’t be doing anything for a few days yet. You want to come meet me in a day or two and go get a drink somewhere?" said Quistis. Vaughn opened his mouth to answer but she spotted the look on his face and beat him to the reply. "And no, that doesn’t mean ‘for sex.’" Vaughn laughed.
"The thought never entered my mind. Well, not for very long, anyway. You got a phone number or would you prefer it if you had mine?"
"I’ll take yours, that’s playing more by the rules," said Quistis, retrieving her clunky mobile phone from her bag. She liked to think of it as fashionably retro rather than several years out of date, which answered the trend-conscious Dallara’s cries for her to get it updated. She fiddled with it for a second before offering it to Vaughn for him to input his number.
"You know, you don’t strike me as somebody who plays by the rules all that often," he said as he typed in his contact details. They were stood outside Kyrick’s house, the party having dried out to the spluttering halt that all-night parties inevitably end in. Xu and Dallara were waiting in a taxi a few feet away, and Quistis had paused on her way out just long enough to have a last word to Vaughn, who was walking out to the train station nearby. Other stragglers were gradually filtering out of the house, thankful that it was still dark outside but scurrying home before the sun came up and reminded them just how long they’d been out for.
"Well, some rules stink but a few help a girl maintain her air of mystery," she said as he finished typing and handed the phone back to her. "So if you’re lucky, I’ll see you around sometime, Vaughn. Nice to meet you," she held out a hand and he took it, bowing respectfully before her.
"And maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll say yes when you ask if I want to come meet up with you," he said. He turned and walked away towards the station.
"See you later, then!" shouted out Quistis. He waved and turned on the spot to pace backwards for a few steps, grinning at her one last time before disappearing into the night. Quistis shook her head at how she always seemed to be able to meet odd men in houses filled with otherwise normal people and hopped into the taxi with the girls.
Inside, Dallara and Xu barraged her with questions about her mystery man.
"So who was that?"
"He looked nice. Did he chat much to you!"
"Did you give him your number?"
"Is he single?"
"Where did you two disappear off to?"
"Why does it smell like trees in here?"
"Girls, girls, girls," said Quistis, holding her hands up and asking for silence. "I will answer what I can. His name is Vaughn, he’s a park ranger at Balamb Forest, and he seems fine. A little sarcastic but in a good-humoured kind of way. No, I don’t know if he’s single, but we had a good night even if he isn’t. And I have his number, he doesn’t have mine. Is that everything?"
Dallara and Xu turned to each other with a raised eyebrow and a ‘mm-hmm!’ to show what they thought of it all. Quistis watched the landscape scroll by through the taxi windows as the girls started talking about what they’d been up to all night. Dallara demonstrated the fun she’d had with a likely looking arts lecturer in one of the upstairs bedrooms.
"That was a bit more graphic than I was expecting.." muttered Xu when she’d finished.
"What? I’ve got my clothes on.." protested Dallara. Quistis just chuckled to herself, her mind not really on anything at all apart from the fact that she’d actually met a reasonably nice-seeming guy for what felt like only about the third time in her whole life, although the likelihood of him being killed by monsters was still depressingly high. That hazard seemed to come along with her showing an interest in someone. She sighed heavily without realising, and noticed moments later that Xu and Dallara were both looking at her, tongues firmly in cheek. Dallara acted as the damsel in distress, Xu as the heroic park ranger.
"Oh, somebody save me!" said Dallara, wringing her hands to together for effect. "My poor widdle puddy tat is stuck up that tree?"
"Have no fear, fair blonde maiden," said Xu in as bold a voice as she could manage, "I’ll save her!" The two girls fell about laughing as the taxi drew to a stop outside the Garden’s front gates. Quistis just shook her head and stepped out, paying the driver as she was The Responsible One. Xu and Dallara staggered out, the mixture of alcohol and fresh air kicking back in at last as they giggled and stuttered their way up into the main Garden gates. It was late, the early hours of the morning to be precise, and although most of the students and staff were tucked up in bed there were a few lights on.
Since the business with the Faculty assistants declaring allegiance to Norg instead of to the Headmaster, they’d all been cleared off the premises and a selection of more senior students were given the old faculty duties. And none of those little whistles that called in monsters to attack from out of nowhere, because Quistis remembered that had been a particularly annoying element of the battles to clean out the Faculty members last time..
Quistis was trying to keep an eye out for any now, as the three girls snuck back to their dorms, as instructors were still liable to get in trouble if they were caught being drunk and disorderly on the premises. Xu wasn’t helping as she kept snorting loudly every few seconds as Dallara tried to shush her, finding the fact that she was trying not to laugh the funniest thing in the whole world in that way that only drunk people can.
They were most of the way back to the instructor’s dorms when a bright light suddenly shone on them. Quistis’ heart sank as she knew they’d been rumbled, but Dallara decided to complete their guilt by bursting into laughter as the bearer of the torchlight stepped forward to confront them. They were on the pathway which led up to the entrance to the instructor’s dorms, lined by pleasant greenery and a small water feature. The trickling noises were making Quistis need to visit the ladies’ room very urgently, so she decided she’d use force to end this encounter if it came to that. A girl needs to prioritise these things.
"Alright, what’s going on here?" said the warden, keeping the light firmly on the trio. Quistis shielded her eyes and tried to make out who it was, recognising the voice but not knowing where from.
"We’re just on our way to bed," she said, her lack of drunkenness promoting her to Ambassador.
"Well it looks to me like you girls need more than just bed. Like, perhaps, a few dozen cups of strong coffee and a cold shower. You know what the Garden regulations are for drunken behaviour in the grounds. No student shall be found-"
"-shall be found within the Garden boundaries exhibiting drunken or otherwise inebriated behaviour at any time, day or night," said Quistis, talking over the man as she quoted the regulation back to him. Garden protocol was one thing she knew a lot of.
"Well, unless this is part of a daring break in attempt, I guess I can also assume that you three are instructors as well, which is much worse, I’m afraid. You’re supposed to be setting an example to the other students, you know!"
"How old are you, exactly?" snapped Quistis. "We know the rules here perfectly well, thank you. Considering you’re the only person currently being exposed to our behaviour, I think we can rule out being a bad influence." The man paused for a moment then switched the torch off and stepped out to be illuminated by one of the overhead security lights. It was Steen, one of Quistis’ old cadets. He grinned as Quistis recognised him.
"Relax, Instructor Trepe, I’m not going to bust you. I was just playing with you, my apologies. It gets pretty quiet round here this time of night, nobody really bothers to break the rules as there are plenty of places hidden from patrols they can get up to no good in instead!"
"Steen? Is that you?" The ex-cadet and now senior student chuckled and ruffled his hair as he walked over t