Kindred Spirits Part Two: Undertow

Squall Leonhart had developed a habit, ever since Seifer had scarred his face during a training battle, of rubbing the scar across the bridge of his nose at times of stress. He was not sure if he gained any solace from it or if it served as a concentration aid, and doubted that it mattered much. Becoming the Combat Master of Balamb Garden, the official title given him at the end of his war, had not lessened his stress level, and Rinoa liked to joke that he was going to need a plastic surgeon if he did not stop dealing with stress in that way. Given the current situation, he was beginning to agree with her; just trying to understand what had happened in the past few hours would likely cause him a few headaches. First had come the report from Doctor Kadowaki that one of the cadets, a girl named Casey Wellon, had been found unconscious in her dormitory room, apparently the victim of an attack judging by the ransacking that her room had gone through. Squall was in the process of beginning the investigation into that, a matter of checking the Garden's security cameras, when Quistis arrived, looking like she had taken on a small army, talking about a mysterious intruder that had defeated not only her but a Level 10 SeeD with ease. Squall was not all that surprised to find out that Eric Alfredsson had been beaten-he was formidable yet still relatively green-but Quistis was another matter. She was not Head Instructor because she was a pretty face, after all. Squall judged that he would find it hard to defeat her in battle, and yet someone had. I don't like this, he thought, watching as Doctor Kadowaki tended to Casey Wellon. The girl lay on a bed in the infirmary, which had been expanded and refitted when the Garden had returned home, pale, the only sign of life the telltales on the monitoring board. "How is she?" Squall asked the doctor.

"I'm not certain," Kadowaki replied. " Everything that I can find suggests to me that she suffered some sort of head trauma, yet I can't find any sign of a physical injury. Her brain wave activity is odd, as well. Which is a good sign, since when she was first brought in, she was flatlined-no activity at all."

"What could cause that?" Squall asked.

"Any number of things in all likelihood." She walked over to the monitors and watched the display showing Casey's brain wave pattern. The line moved across the screen in a series of identical low curves. Kadowaki frowned. "There's something familiar about this," she said, her voice thoughtful. Squall was about to inquire further when Kadowaki waved at him with one hand in a dismissive gesture. "I'll handle this, Squall. It's my duty, after all. Your concern is what happened to Quistis and that other young man."

Squall might have been Combat Master, but he knew better than to argue with the doctor. She had been stitching up training scars and dealing with the sort of injuries that came with youth for quite some time, long enough that she was not impressed by his title. He made his goodbyes and went out to the waiting room, where Quistis and Eric were. Quistis was leaning against the doctor's desk, holding her left arm with her right; Squall was not certain if she was favoring an injury or not. Her face was bruised and swollen, and there was a distant look to her eyes that Squall had never seen before. Eric was standing by the door, practically at attention; a bandage around his left biceps covered the worst of the burns that Quistis' Protect spell had not prevented. As was his way, he saluted Squall, who did not return it. He had bigger worries than protocol. "Quistis, what happened out there?" he asked.

"I wish I knew," she whispered. She doubted that Squall would find that an acceptable answer, so she pressed on. "It-it was someone who claimed to be Aileen Navarre, a former SeeD. And I believe it was, even if Aileen is dead."

"Hold on a minute. You're saying that you fought someone who is dead and yet you think it's the same person? Quistis, that doesn't make any sense."

"I didn't say it did, Squall!" she snapped, loud enough to cause Squall to step back. "I know that it doesn't. I hit her with a Holy spell and she shrugged it off like it was nothing. She used some sort of non-elemental energy attacks I've seen no SeeD ever use. I threw her into a pit of lava and watched her body melt, and in no time at all she reappeared, unscathed. All of that tells me that it wasn't Aileen-and yet it was."

Squall decided to start over. He turned to Eric and asked "How did you come to be there, Mr. Alfredsson?"

Eric paused for an instant, looking towards Quistis as if waiting for her approval. She's not your teacher anymore, Eric, Squall thought. You don't need to wait for her anymore. Quistis did not meet his eyes, lost in thought. Eric took a deep breath and began. "I was concerned about her, sir. Something appeared to be bothering her earlier in class, during the after action report. I followed her to the first floor and saw her preparing to leave the campus. I followed her to the Fire Cavern and saw that she was engaged in combat with what seemed to be a woman." Eric described her with such detail that Squall could not help but wonder if Eric had a photographic memory. " I say 'seemed' because when I wounded her with Griev-with my sword, she did not bleed." Across the room, Quistis perked up a little, struck by how Eric had nearly said the name of his sword. One of the little mysteries about Eric, second only to why he tolerated Aiko, was the name of his weapon, if it even had one. " Her strength and speed were beyond SeeD capabilities, and she did seem to re-generate a new body," he continued. I don't know if she was who Quistis claims she is, and that is irrelevant. She's a threat, sir."

"I'm aware of that, Mr. Alfredsson. Why did you follow her with out looking for back up?"

"I didn't have time to get on the PA, sir. I am a SeeD, aren't I?"

That was the closest to insubordinate that Eric was likely to get, Squall thought. Reminds me a little of me before I got my head on straight. He turned his attention to Quistis, hoping that she had had time to gather her thoughts. "Who is this Aileen person, Quistis?"

"She was my best friend when I was a cadet. She and I graduated together. She was killed on my second mission." Quistis was speaking in a flat monotone, almost as if reciting something from a book. "I'm sure her records are still on file here. You could ask Cid and Xu about her if they were here." The Headmaster and her old friend were currently in Esthar, running the on-going contract to deal with the monsters along with Zell Dincht. "I just wish I knew why she was doing this."

Squall was about to inquire into the specific circumstances of Aileen's death when Selphie burst into the room, her face a mask of worry. She brushed Eric's bandaged arm, causing him to wince. "Squall, where's Casey?!" she cried. Squall was a little confused until she remembered that Casey was one of Selphie's trainees. "Is she all right?"

"She's with Dr. Kadowaki now. She's in some sort of coma." Selphie did not wait for the word, just blasted past Squall and headed into the infirmary proper. Eric waited until she was out of the room before he said "Oh, damn, that hurt."

Quistis actually managed to smile over that. "I'm sure she didn't mean to do that. We have to figure out what to do now. Aileen-we have to call her something, Squall, even if she isn't her-said that if we wanted to find her, we would have to follow her home. That would be the Dollet Dukedom. I hope that means that she won't come back here if I go."

"What do you mean, go?" Squall asked in a dangerous tone of voice, the one Quistis called his "Don't mess with me" voice. "I'm not going to just let you chase off after a threat likethat without…"

"Without what? Squall, she wants to kill me. I can't-I won't-sit still and wait for her to come back here and hurt someone else."

Squall rubbed at the scar. "I understand that, Quistis. Your life is at risk here. I have to consider that. But I won't let you throw your life away, either."

Quistis pondered this for a moment, organizing her thoughts. She had to convince Squall to let her deal with this on her own, to spare her friends from the baleful malice that Aileen had evidenced. "I'm not going to throw my life away, Squall. She has planned this very well-she said that she used some sort of mind link to draw me to her, and when she encountered unexpected resistance, she clearly had a back-up plan. Do you really think that I would just wildly chase after her, alone?" She indicated the door that Selphie had gone through. "There's a girl in there who might die because of Aileen, Squall. I have to stop her. But I won't go alone. How I go is up to you-I'm only Head Instructor, you're Combat Master. You can assign SeeDs without a contracted mission." She hoped that it was enough; Squall may have mellowed since meeting Rinoa, but all that meant was that he was somewhat stubborn and hard headed, not constantly so.

Squall surprised her. "I never said that I wouldn't let you go, Quistis. I just wanted to make certain that you weren't going to do anything foolish. Mr. Alfredsson?" Eric stopped focusing on the pain that Selphie's inadvertent contact had brought and snapped to attention. Quistis was beginning to wonder if Eric ever relaxed. " I'm not quite certain yet what sort of response team I'm willing to designate, given our current manpower commitment to Esthar. Since you battled the, ah, target, I'm ordering you to accompany Quistis."

"Yes, sir." Eric's expression was unreadable; with what had happened over the past day, though, Quistis imagined that Eric was probably thinking about the world-class ribbing that Aiko was going to give him over his first mission. " Do you have any orders for me, sir?"

Squall decided that Eric was the most serious minded person he had ever met. "Not at present, soldier. You won't be leaving until tomorrow, anyway-since Dollet isn't that far away, relatively speaking, you'll be transported by one of the assault boats. The weather forecast for tomorrow is clear."

Selphie returned, cutting off any response from Eric or Quistis. Her normal exuberance was masked by a seriousness that made her seem her age instead of the perpetual teenager that she projected. "Poor Casey," she sighed, "what happened to her?"

"She was attacked by the same entity that attacked us," Quistis told her. "Something-someone-that wanted to kill me."

Selphie's eyes widened in shock. "Kill you? Why? Who was it?"

Eric saved Quistis from having to deal with telling the story again. "Quistis said it was a former SeeD named Aileen Navarre. That she had somehow come back from the dead, with power that no SeeD has ever had."

Selphie frowned. "That didn't help. Did she hurt you, Quistis?"

"Nothing too bad," Quistis replied. Physically at least, she thought. "Thanks to Eric," she added.

Selphie's expression brightened marginally. "Oh, yeah. You're Eric-that Eric." She noticed the bandage on his arm and said " I ran into that arm, didn't I? Sorry."

"Think nothing of it," he said, as if he had not felt a thing.

Selphie turned her back so her face was hidden from Eric and mouthed "Oh, gosh, he's fine, you lucky girl," to Quistis. So much for Selphie putting out the fire of those rumors, Quistis thought. Aloud, she said, "So, what are we gonna do, Squall? We can't let someone get away with this."

"We aren't, Selphie. Quistis and Eric are going after the entity tomorrow, once I determine how many people to send with them."

Quistis saw a chance and took it. "Squall, if we're going to Dollet by boat, you can't send much more than a squad, can you? Unless you authorize using the Ragnarok, we can't take that many."

Squall swore to himself. He had hoped that by giving Quistis a cooling off period, he could convince her to allow him to reassemble the main combat team that had fought Adel and Ultimecia before tomorrow. He had hung himself by his words, and Quistis was in control of the situation. She doesn't want anyone else to get hurt, he thought. Going by boat lessens the number of men that can go. Squall sighed. "You know that I can't send the Ragnarok, Quistis. All right, you win. It'll be squad strength. Should I ask for volunteers or will you handle it?"

"Actually, that will be Eric's call. Unless you reactivate me as a combat SeeD, he'll be in command." Quistis had a fairly good idea of who Eric would select for the mission anyway, since he could only pick two. "Come on, Eric, let's get started." She headed for the door, Eric taking the time to collect his burn-marked uniform jacket and his sword before leaving.

Behind them, Selphie nudged Squall with an elbow and remarked, "You know, I think they make a cute couple." Squall barely acknowledged her, lost in thought. In the midst of all of Quistis' machinations, her desperate need to confront the enemy alone, she had not managed to keep him from thinking about one thing; what had happened, when Aileen had died, to make Quistis accept at face value that she would return, wishing her dead.

Dr. Kadowaki emerged from the infirmary and seemed a bit surprised to see that Quistis and Eric were gone. "I wasn't quite finished with them, you know. That lad's burns were a bit severe. Where are they?"

"They're going after the entity that attacked them. Something that called itself Aileen Navarre." Squall went to the door. "Keep me updated on the Wellon girl, Doctor."

"I will, Squall," she told him. She waited for Selphie to leave, which took a few more minutes of Selphie asking for the same updates that Squall was to get, before she sat down behind her desk and let the shock that she had felt upon hearing Aileen's name show. "Oh, Quistis," she lamented, "you poor thing. You poor little thing."

Eric waited for Quistis to reach the center hub of the Garden before he asked her "Why are you so determined to fight this battle alone?"

Quistis looked back over her shoulder at Eric and was lost for words. She doubted that she had fooled Squall-he knew her way too well-and she had hoped that Eric was in the dark. She had been forced to accept Eric's presence by circumstances, and had acted to limit the number of people that would be involved when the opportunity arose. That Eric had caught on suggested to her that her motives went beyond transparent. " Whether I am or not is beside the point, Eric. Squall ordered you to go. Your duty is to fulfill your orders to the best of your ability."

"That it is, Quistis." He decided to press the point later; she would tell him if he really needed to know why. Or so he hoped. "So, who do you want to take with us?" he asked, returning to the greater issue at hand.

"It's your call, Eric. And since I know you'll say Aiko and Kai, we might as well find them and get started."

Eric nearly smiled over that. Seems I'm not the only one who's not hiding things well, he thought. "They are good choices; Kai for support and the rest of us for actual combat. Before we go, Quistis, let me just say that as far as I'm concerned, you're in command. So don't worry about the technicalities of the situation. I'd be a fool to tell you what to do."

"Don’t underestimate yourself, Eric. You did pretty good out there today."

"Not good enough," he said under his breath. He gave himself a once-over and realized that he and Quistis were both quite the mess. Going to and from the fire cavern in the rain and fighting in a life or death struggle will do that to you, he supposed. "If I can make a suggestion on a matter other than personnel, I think we could both use a bit of clean-up."

If she looked as bedraggled as Eric did, then he was right. Since she had taken the worst of the fight, then she probably looked worse. "You have a point. Can you run down Aiko and Kai for me? We’ll meet at the library and go over what we can before we prepare to leave."

"Shouldn’t be too hard to find Kai. He's always in the library, 'honing his skills as the Ace' as he likes to say. Aiko, well, I'll find her. Shall we call it two hours just to be safe?"

"Sounds good," she said, walking away from him. She realized that she had neglected to do something and turned, calling his name. The cadets that were in the general vicinity suddenly found just about anything to look at other than Quistis and Eric. " Thank you for saving me from her," she said, not caring what kind of rumors that it generated.

Eric's reply was rather self-effacing. "Actually, I should say the same thing to you. Let's just call it even." He saluted and went his way.

Quistis walked through the Garden, noticing the odd looks that the cadets and the occasional faculty member gave her. She was aware that her head was throbbing, probably the result of Aileen's savage strength. She relived the battle in her mind, going over everything that had happened from the moment that she had entered the fire cavern with the trained analytical mind that served her so well as a SeeD, and she could find no logical reason to accept why she should believe the thing that called itself Aileen was her friend. And yet she did, instinctively, in the depths of her soul. She reached her quarters and went in, for a moment unable to reconcile the room that she had left this morning with this one. She tossed Save the Queen onto her bed with an idle gesture. She removed her uniform with roughly the same care that she had laid down her weapon and went into the bathroom.

She studied her reflection in the mirror and, off hand, she had seen worse. Not on her, admittedly, but she had seen worse. She touched the bruises on her face with a certain sense of wonder, and for some reason, that brought it home for her. Her friend, the girl that had gotten her through more than one close scrape at school, a person who, looking back at it, had helped her get through some of the traumas of her failed adoption, had hurt her. Had tried to kill her. Wanted her to die. Everything that she had hid from Squall and Eric, the emotion that had prompted her to try to keep as many people as possible out of this, burst out, and, with a shout of incoherent rage, she punched the mirror hard enough to break it. She buried her head in her forearms against the edge of the sink and, for the first time in years, Quistis Trepe began to cry.

Eric found Aiko in her new quarters, identifiable by the sign that read "TRESSPASSERS WILL BE SHOT-SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN" that she had hung on her half of the double dormitory room that she had been assigned to. She had transferred the current version-the hall proctors had tended to tear her little statement down on a regular basis-with glee to her current door. It was on that sheet of printer paper that he knocked, and knocked again until Aiko sleepily grumbled "I'm coming, damnit." She opened the door, wearing one of her typical outfits, a black skintight catsuit under her SeeD uniform jacket. There were times that Eric understood why people thought what they did about him and Aiko; she was seriously attractive, and the people who thought of them as lovers were probably giving him credit. She yawned-Aiko had stayed out far too late for the party-and asked "What happened to you?"

Eric walked into her room before someone saw her and started yet another series of stories. "Remember what I told you I sensed? Something cold? I ran into it." He sat down at the table in the front room before continuing. "You were asleep?" he asked.

"Halfway there. You did tell me to wait here until you got back. I was about to doze off." She indicated the burns on his uniform jacket. " Looking at you, I'd say that I should have gone with you. What happened?"

"You'll find out. The short form is Quistis got attacked and I helped. Now she's going after the enemy, I've been ordered to go with her, and guess who else is going?"

"Me, right." Aiko took the chair opposite of him. "I've got a long series of dental appointments, you know. Might not be able to make it." The joke fell flat. " Don't worry, Eric; the last time I checked, we're a team." She appeared to study her toes under the table, which did not fool Eric. "Eric," she began, "has it-has it started?"

Eric closed his eyes. "I hope not. I hope not."

Aiko reached over and took his hand. "You still don't lie to me very well, little brother." Aiko had not called him that for years, long years before their families had sent them to Galbadia Garden. It had started because of their age difference-she was two months older than him-and the fact that they had once been mistaken for siblings. She had stopped calling him that at the age of fourteen when a prospective boyfriend had believed that Eric really was her brother and he was afraid of him. "You know what's coming, Eric. You have since your father died."

"Maybe. Maybe not." Eric rose to his feet. "Quistis wants to meet in the library in about two hours. I need to get cleaned up and find Kai; he's going too."

"Kai! Goody!" Kai was one of her favorite people at Balamb Garden because, when she had pulled her notorious cadet-hazing stunt about her figure, his response had been "Gravity always wins." She had been so thrown off guard by it that Kai had escaped from her, and she wound up liking him for his sheer pluck. "He's always fun to have around."

"Just hope that he can take it. This one could get rough. We aren't killing weak monsters that were fleeing the main combat zone this time."

"Noticed that, didn't you?" Aiko let Eric leave before she said a rather rude word. She could care less that Eric had volunteered her for a mission; they worked well together and that chemistry would help overcome their inexperience. She just did not like the way events were progressing, and the effect that they had on Eric. Plus I didn't like the way he said "Quistis", she thought. I'd get jealous if I didn't have a better body than her. "You should have let me go with you in the first place," she said to herself.

Squall had never been much on computers-he considered logging into the system to be a major pain-so when Rinoa found him at his desk in the Combat Master's office, hunched over the workstation, she could not help but find it odd. She walked over so she stood behind him, looked over his shoulder, and asked "What're you doing, Squall?" in her usual playful manner. Squall did not answer; he was studying a menu on the monitor as if his life depended on it. Rinoa read what was displayed, then remarked "Student record archives? What are you up to, hon?"

Squall finally answered. "Someone attacked Quistis today. They claimed to be a former SeeD named Aileen Navarre, who is supposed to be dead. I'm trying to find her files."

"I heard that Quistis had had some trouble. That's why I'm here. " Rinoa reached past him and touched one of the touch-sensitive icons on screen, the one marked "Index". "Do you have her student registration number?" Rinoa asked. "No, probably not." She called up a search engine and told it to display all inactive files for students using the letter "N" as the key. Squall gave Rinoa one of those little looks that he reserved for her when she did something unexpected. "What?" she asked as the engine went to work.

"When did you learn to do that? Use the Garden system, I mean?"

Rinoa grinned at him. "You learn a lot watching Selphie update her network page every couple of weeks. You went to school here and you don't know the ins and outs of it?"

Squall was saved by the screen lighting up with the listing that Rinoa had requested. He scanned the list and quickly found the name Navarre, Aileen, and part of him was relieved. At least Quistis told the truth about that. He selected her name and found himself looking at what had to be Aileen's records. There was a picture there, showing a pretty girl with long black hair and a beauty mark on her cheek. Squall could not reconcile this person with someone capable of wanting Quistis dead. He paged through the file, not too terribly interested in her evaluations from her instructors or reports from the Disciplinary Committee on some indiscretion of hers. It took a bit, since the report covered all of her time at Balamb Garden, from her first day as a cadet to her time as a SeeD. Finally, Squall found what he was looking for. "SeeD Level Eight Aileen Navarre,killed in action during SeeD Contract 358451-AVN-D1945," he read aloud. Someone had appended her autopsy photos to the file, and Rinoa gasped and looked away. "Cause of death, head trauma caused by impact consistent with multiple gun shot wounds," Squall continued. "Two entry wounds at the front of the skull, exiting at the base of the spine. Bullet tracks consistent with hollow point loads. She's dead all right."

"Then who-or what-attacked Quistis?" Rinoa asked.

Squall went back through the report, looking for some kind of report on the mission where she had died and found none. Scowling, he returned to the Index page and called up the Contract History. He entered the number by memory and was a bit surprised when he was denied access."File access restricted to the Headmaster and the Garden Master," he said.

Rinoa had a contemplative expression on her face. "Squall, you pulled up that file pretty quick. Couldn't you have done that with Navarre's file?"

Squall sighed. He sometimes wished that Rinoa couldn't see through him so easily. "Guess I was worried about what I was going to find," he confessed. "And to tell you the truth, I'm still worried. What happened between Quistis and Aileen?"

"You could ask Quistis, you know? She is your friend." Rinoa draped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

Squall had a rather decent counter to that. "I'm her friend. She could tell me."

"You have a point," Rinoa admitted. "What now?"

"I haven't got a choice. Quistis is going out after whatever she fought. She wants to keep it away from here. She's leaving with a squad tomorrow."

"And we aren't going?" she asked. Squall did not answer. "Is that what she wants?" This time he nodded. Rinoa found that odd, to say the least, and she added herself to the list of people who were wondering what had happened all those years ago. Since meeting her in Timber during the War, Rinoa had always been impressed with the way Quistis carried herself, and on occasion had wished that she could perform in battle as well as Quistis did. It had never occurred to her that Quistis might be as vulnerable beneath the surface as she was, until now.

Quistis, dressed now in her favorite outfit, sat on her bed, the emotional storm having passed. She could not remember the last time that she had cried

(the day Aileen died/remember you promised to remember)

but she understood why it had happened. She had undergone a series of shocks that would have driven most people over the edge of sanity; a fifteen minute bout of crying seemed a small price to pay. After the spell had passed, she had cleaned up the mess that she had made before working on herself and, finally, cleaning the dried caterchipiller blood from Save the Queen. She had decided to approach the problem of Aileen Navarre from a military perspective, having concluded that she had fought with her emotions, rather than as a Seed. The next time, she thought, I'll beat her. Somehow. She saw from her clock, the same one that had greeted her on this morning a seeming eternity ago, that it was nearly time to meet with Eric and his hand picked squad. She hoped that Eric was up to the task in front of them; if he was, he could drag Aiko and Kai with him. She picked up Save the Queen and left, wishing that the results of this departure differed from the last time. A small part of her soul told her that she was right; that this time, it was going to be worse. A lot worse. She stepped through the door and went to face her destiny.

During the Third Sorceress War, the Galbadian Army had invaded the Dollet Dukedom specifically for the purpose of reactivating the communications tower that loomed over the city like a metallic sentinel. One of the conditions of the withdrawal of Galbadia from Dollet had been that the tower be maintained, and that condition, at least, had been faithfully kept by the Dukedom. Even after Galbadia had fallen into civil war after the collapse of Ultimecia's puppet government, the tower had been maintained. Standing beneath the dish, her eyes shut, a predatory smile on her face, Aileen Navarre could feel the power that the tower hurled skyward in her very soul, so to speak. From her vantage point, if she opened her eyes, she could look to the east and to the sea that separated Dollet and Balamb, the distance between herself and her prey. Quistis had survived the first battle less because of the intervention of the swordsman but because Aileen had not been willing to extend her powers to the point of defeating the newcomer. Quistis had gotten stronger-Aileen had sensed the power that hid within Quistis-and the interloper hadn't lacked for power, either. "It's best to be cautious about these things," she said aloud.

"Is that so, Aileen?" a sibilant, reptilian voice spoke from everywhere and nowhere at once. A shadow enveloped her; the sound of leathery wings thrumming the air as the darkness claimed her vision and announced the presence of her dread lord. "Caution is a trait that I admire in my heralds, but I also admire the bold. You had sufficient power to defeat any of those SeeDs, and yet you did not. You remain too human in your thinking."

"I-I am sorry, Lord Urizen. Will you punish me?"

The voice chuckled, the sort of sound that, if a human heard it, their eardrums would burst. Aileen shivered with a fear she had forgotten. " I do not grandstand, little Aileen. Had I wanted you punished, you would already would have been." Something that seemed to be a hand made of smoke, tipped with claws, stroked her cheek, glacier cold and feverish fire running through her. "I have set before you a task, Aileen. How you accomplish it is entirely up to you." Urizen's hand tightened into a fist in front of her eyes. "My patience is not unlimited, however. I have a timetable to keep, and it will not wait for you."

"Yes, Lord Urizen. Quistis and her sword bearing friend will follow me here, like lambs to the slaughter. And then they will die."

"I hope that you are correct," Urizen said. " I allowed you the chance to attain your vengeance because it suited me. Beware that it does not." The sound of wings came again, the darkness fading. "Do not fail me, Aileen." Urizen's voice hung in the air like blades on a thread over her head, threat and menace everywhere. Aileen leaned back against the tower, and took a deep breath that she did not need to take anymore. Old habits die hard, she thought. "Yes, Lord Urizen. I will not fail you. I will kill Quistis Trepe. She laughed, a sound while not as malevolent as Urizen's, certainly promised that she would do evil to whomever opposed her.