Kindred Spirits Part Five: The End Of The Innocence

Aiko had been flirting with one of the RMP officers stationed at the fire stairs, less out of attraction than boredom, when Eric had left Quistis' room, looking a bit flustered. She broke off her conversation with the young officer, who cursed in frustration, and reached Eric before he got to his room. "What were you doing in there?" she asked him. Eric did not answer, opening the door and going into the room that was identical to hers and she assumed Quistis'. Aiko frowned and followed him without asking if she could come in. "Eric, what's wrong with you? You haven't acted like this since you met old what's-her-name at Galbadia Garden."

Eric sat down on his bed and sighed. "Her name was Kasumi, Aiko. And you're closer than you know. I was about an inch away from kissing Quistis a second ago."

"Man, do you work quick. Seriously?" Eric nodded. "You know, most guys would be going through the roof over that, unless she smacked you for it. You're the only man I know who makes being attracted to someone a miserable experience."

Eric picked up the sheath that held Grieving Angel from where it leaned against the bed and drew his father's sword. "You know there are reasons for that, Aiko," he told her. He held the sword up, studying the runes that run down the base of the blade. "There are times that I hate this thing."

Aiko sat down beside of Eric and patted him on the shoulder. "There , there, Eric. It'll be all right." She did not know that for certain, but it beat saying nothing. "Did you find out anything about how Aileen died? You said you were going to try."

"She doesn't really remember," Eric replied. "Something really odd is going on there." He put Grieving Angel away. "And I mean really. You know how earlier today that I told her my mother was dead, right? I know you heard that." Aiko nodded. "Well, just a few minutes ago, she asked me if my mother was still alive, and when I told her the truth, that I really don't know, she didn't bat an eyelash. She's having trouble making associations, Aiko. That's not good. I just wish I could help her."

"You have it bad for her, don't you?" She playfully messed with Eric's hair. "I think that's sweet."

Before Eric could answer, Kai called on their earbeads. "Eric, Aiko, this is Kai. I…I know what's wrong with Quistis."

"How exactly do you know that?" Eric asked.

"Because Squall asked me to find out, and not to tell Quistis I was doing it. Believe me, I feel miserable about it…"

"We'll kick your butt over it later, Kai," Aiko snapped. "What happened to Quistis?"

Kai cleared his throat. "It wasn't so much what happened to her as what was done to her. Quistis was a squad leader on a mission contracted by the Galbadian government. Elements of the Galbadian Army had decided to attempt to overthrow President Deling. The Galbadian secret service found out about it and hired SeeD to deal with it. The rebel army members were holed up in a slum neighborhood in Deling City, and they knew SeeD was coming. Quistis and the rest walked into a trap. Fifty-five percent losses, KIA. Including Aileen Navarre."

"So what happened to make Quistis a target of Aileen?" Eric wondered.

"I don't know. But I know why she can't remember it properly. It was done to her."

Without a sense of transition, Quistis was standing elsewhere.

She looked around, bewildered by being in the darkness, and saw rising above her a familiar shape, the communications tower that overlooked Dollet. Her hand dropped to her hip, finding the comfort of her chain whip. Aileen stood beside of her, looking for a moment like the girl she had known as a cadet. "I used to sneak up here a lot as a kid," she told Quistis. "It was inactive then, the only thing going on up here was older kids used it as a make-out point. I smoked my first cigarette on a dare up here."

Quistis stepped away from Aileen. "I'm not here to talk about your life, Aileen. I'm here to finish this."

"So you are. You're in a hurry to die then." Aileen began pacing back and forth. "Very well. Do you remember the mission that I died during, what it was exactly?"

Quistis concentrated, the very effort making her skull throb. "I-I don't know. I remember that we were fighting in a city."

"Deling City. One of the less reputable neighborhoods. SeeD was hired to deal with a renegade Galbadian Army colonel, who intended to use his unit to overthrow the President and put himself on top. We were brought in to keep the hands of the Galbadians clean, so when the colonel was defeated, he wouldn't be a martyr to the resistance forces. They could rightfully say that SeeD had killed the evil rebel."

"I remember that now." A flood of memories rushed over her: the briefing by Cid on the specifics of their contact, being ferried to Galbadia via borrowed Galbadian air transport, how she had been given squad command of the first unit to enter the slum. She remembered the mixture of pride at being given command and the fear of going into combat. "I remember that."

"I'm so pleased," Aileen sneered. "Do you remember what happened when we went into the slums?"

Quistis strained, agony flaring in her mind. " I know we were attacked, that we were pinned down, but that's all."

Aileen shook her head. "This won't do. That was rather clever of them, using the GF to reinforce the therapy. I don't have time for this." She raised her hand, and electrical arcs crackled between her fingers. "I can subvert the blocks in your mind, Quistis. It's going to hurt a great deal, though." Electricity raced towards Quistis, and she was lost in pain, her body shaking from the voltage that Aileen poured into her. "Really, it's just a question of altering the electrochemical balance in your brain. That's all." Wracked with pain, now on her hands and knees, Quistis began to remember everything.

"You know what happened to Quistis?" Squall asked, incredulous. Dr. Kadowaki nodded, somberly. "You knew and you didn't say anything yesterday when I let her talk me into going after Aileen Navarre." She nodded again. "Why did you let me do it, Doctor?"

Kadowaki was silent for a long time, so long that Squall nearly prompted her to speak. Finally, she said, "I never expected any ill to come of it. Aileen was dead, and Quistis was in such pain over it. When I heard what you said yesterday, I was so shocked that I really did not know how to deal with it."

"Doctor," Squall said, gently, "what exactly are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I only wanted the best for Quistis. You see, after the mission that Aileen died on, Quistis was a wreck. She blamed herself for Aileen's death, was very depressed, and was suffering from post-combat stress. They were very close to discharging her for medical reasons-the Headmaster and the Garden Masters. I wanted to help the poor child-all she really did was go to that secret place behind the Training Center and think about Aileen-so I went to the Garden Master on her behalf."

"To Norg." Squall did not think much of the monstrous former Master of Balamb Garden, and he did not try to hide the scorn in his voice. "What did you do, Doctor?"

"I tried to convince him that Quistis had value as a SeeD, if her problems could be dealt with. Apparently I convinced him, because the Garden Masters took her off the combat roster and she went-somewhere-for a while. About a month later, she was returned to duty, the same person that she had been before, or so I thought. There was something odd about her. She would talk about Aileen, but it was as if she was reciting by rote. After a while, she stopped talking about Aileen at all. I thought it was just because she was dead, and after a while, young people move on. But now I'm not so sure."

"What could they have done to her?" Rinoa wondered.

"I don't know." Squall rubbed at the scar. "Playtime is over." He activated the intercom and hit the memory button that connected him to Selphie. She answered with a bubbly "Hiya!" Squall could usually count on Selphie to be cheerful. "This is Squall. How long can it take you to get the Ragnarok ready for departure?"

"Ah, gee, let's see…thirty minutes to re-fuel and pre-flight. What's up?"

"We're going to Dollet. We're going after Quistis."

"Should have done that in the first place, Squall. Meet you at the flight line!"

Squall next tried to reach Kai Hallen, but he either was off-line or wasn't answering. He asked the communications staff to try to reach Quistis directly using any SeeD combat frequency, but that did not work either. "Keep trying," Squall ordered, then he turned his attention to the doctor. "You only wanted the best for Quistis, Doctor. No one can fault you for that." There was no point in recriminations now, Squall thought; he had let Quistis leave. It was his task to put that to rights. "Come on, Rinoa, let's get ready. Quistis needs us."

"Whether she wants to admit it or not," Rinoa added.

This was what Quistis remembered:

She has only been a SeeD for a short time now, and yet she has learned very quickly that the intelligence that she gets before a mission can be very unreliable. On her first mission, the contractor's background data had been wildly inaccurate, overestimating the strength of the enemy by a factor of fifty percent. Quistis can live with that sort of error-it is the other sort, when her intel underestimates a foe, that lives are lost. She can understand, intellectually, why the Galbadians might understate the extent of the forces waiting for them in this slum-it would reveal the weakness of the government and the military if it got out that large units of the military plotted treason against President Deling. Understanding a thing and approving it are two different things, however, and as she leads her squad through a neighborhood turned sudden war zone, automatic weapons fire and mid-level magics blasting around them, she definitely does not approve of it. She dives into an alley, Aileen Navarre on her heels, bullets chasing them like living things. "This sucks!" Aileen decides, an opinion that Quistis shares. Quistis leans her back against the brick wall of the alley and cues her headset microphone and calls "Command, this is Squad leader Trepe. First squad pinned down by sniper fire and concentrated magic use! Request immediate support!"

No one answers as a series of Fire spells rake the street in front of them. Quistis somehow isn't surprised. "I think we're being jammed," she tells Aileen and the others. Among them is a blonde haired girl named Tamara, on her first mission as a SeeD. She is two years older than Quistis, yet she is looking towards the younger girl with fear and dread in her eyes. There are times that Quistis regrets being a child prodigy. This is one of them. "We’re in trouble," she says largely to herself.

"No kidding," Aileen replies sarcastically. "Well, now what, fearless leader?"

Quistis peers around the corner, long enough to spot men armed with automatic weapons moving down the street towards them, using the cars parked in the street as cover. She ducks back around the corner as a sniper’s bullet chips at the brick of the corner. "We can’t stay here or we’ll be overrun. Aileen, cast something, anything, towards that roofline over there. I’ll take the men on the ground. Under cover of that, we’ll retreat to the first alley we were in." The first alley offers little more protection than where they currently are, but it is closer to the SeeD force that they are the vanguard for. "You ready, Aileen?"

Aileen grins, part of her seeming to enjoy this. "As ready as you can get, Quistis."

Quistis rolls out into the street, casting a picture perfect Thunder spell. It hits a parked car square on and as she had hoped, the car explodes, driving the forces on the ground back. Simultaneously, Aileen casts a Fira spell, aiming for the roofline that appears to be where most of the gunfire is coming from. A series of small, secondary explosions, most likely from ammunition stores, go off. Quistis shouts "Move it!" and the first around the corner is Tamara, running pell-mell into the street, and for all of three seconds, Quistis allows herself to believe that they might escape unharmed.

Which is when Tamara flies forward, hands clutching desperately at the small of her back, the flat crack of a sniper's rifle echoing in the canyons of the slums streets.

Quistis lets out an utterly uncharacteristic yelp of fear as she rolls back into the safety of the alley. Tamara lays in the street, writhing in a pool of blood, her face pale. Oh my god now what, Quistis thinks. Aileen grabs her arm and shouts "Quistis! She's down! Do something!"

Quistis peers around the corner and sees that the men held at bay by her Thunder spell are regrouping, moving towards them again. She sees Tamara looking up at her, her eyes filled with pain and fear. Do something, she thinks. She decides that attacking beats dying. "Aileen! Clear us a path! Use a GF, quick!"

As Aileen begins to summon a GF, Quistis does the only thing she knows to do. She casts one of the few Shell spells that she has stocked on Tamara, protecting her from the sniper, and, gambling, she casts her gaze to the building Aileen attacked. With a burst of clarity, she sees the barrel of a rifle protruding from a window, and she reacts, using Laser Eye just as two shots roar from the rifle. The beam hits the windows, and a gout of blood explodes against the window. Quistis turns to call to Aileen, and that is when she sees her friend, who had stepped closer to the street to more accurately gauge where to dispatch the GF, slumped to the ground, two neat holes in her forehead, a halo of blood encircling her head-

"NO!" Quistis shouted, forcing the memory away.

Tears welled in her eyes as the shame, the guilt, the responsibility that she had felt fell on her like a psychological ton of bricks. She remembered now, clearly, how she had been found by the second wave of SeeDs that had broken through the rebel lines, clinging to Aileen, begging to someone, anyone to help her. She remembered it all, all the pain that a fifteen year old girl could feel when she lost something. She had lost her best friend and the innocence that her training had given her, that any situation could be overcome with the proper response. Intellectually, she knew that by killing the sniper, she had saved the squad with only minimal losses, in military terms. Military terms never translated well into terms of human lives. "My god," she whispered, " I didn't want you to die, Aileen. Do you blame me for dying in battle?"

Aileen kicked Quistis in the jaw, knocking her onto her back. "No, I don't. I'm not that petty. I blame you for casting that spell on Tamara! You could have cast something on me, but instead you left me unprotected! You went for the glory of killing the sniper!"

"I was trying to save all of us, Aileen." Quistis rose to her feet, wiping the tears from her eyes. "You don't know what happened to Tamara, did you, because you died? I remember now, thanks to whatever you just did to me. She was paralyzed below the waist, her spine shot in half. She died three weeks later from complications from her injuries. So I failed both of you."

"I don't care. It was because of you that I became this freakish thing I am now, this monster. Do you want to know how, Quistis?"

Quistis was about to answer, but her head filled with a rush of memory, as everything else that had been hidden in her mind revealed itself to her.

She is in the infirmary, sitting on a bed, hugging her legs to her chest, unable to stop crying. Aileen and Tamara both gone because of me, both dead because of me, is all she can think. She hears Dr. Kadowaki out in the office, talking to someone on the phone in a low whisper. It was the doctor who found her at the secret place, the one that she chose to go to to keep Aileen alive in her heart, the one who, just before going to talk to whomever she spoke to on the phone, had told her that she was going to make everything better. Quistis lays back on the bed and closes her eyes, wishing that it would all go away, and for a while it does as she falls into a dreamless sleep.

She is not certain how long that she sleeps, yet when she wakes up, she hears two people outside of her room speaking. One is Doctor Kadowaki, the other is an unknown, male voice. "I am the one who asked you for help," Kadowaki says, "because I know that the Masters have more power around here than most are aware of. I just have to ask, what you're proposing- is this really necessary?"

"Yes, Doctor. The girl has great potential, as you stated so eloquently to Master Norg. And there are psychotherapy techniques that can help her. The risk is great if she chooses to resist, but the rewards are considerable."

There is silence for a moment, then she hears Doctor Kadowaki sigh. " Then help her."

"What did who do to her?" Aiko asked Kai.

"Norg and the Garden Masters," he replied. "They really ran Balamb Garden until the War started. The Masters had amassed a great deal of study on the mechanics of GF and their effects on the human mind. Most of the data that they had came from Esthar. They used a technique that combined hypnotherapy with something called ' controlled electrochemical stimulus of Guardian Forces'."

"Which means?" Eric asked.

"It means, simply, that they used standard hypnotherapy to treat Quistis for the guilt she felt for living, which is all it really boiled down to. The problem was that Quistis, like most SeeDs, is very strong-willed, so they feared that she could overcome most standard therapy. So they used a treatment that chemically controlled, in effect, the sections of the mind that the GF normally inhabits. Each usage of a GF would reinforce the treatment. But according to the notes I uncovered, it was never meant to erase or alter Quistis' memory. When the Masters realized what they had done, they simply kept quiet. Had Aileen never returned, Quistis might not have ever known what was done to her."

"So how did the blocks fail?" Eric wondered. "It's not like she's stopped using GF."

"There's something we're missing here," Kai said. "Something to do with the GF. Aiko couldn't summon a GF earlier, remember. And there's something else, right on the tip of my tongue, about GF."

"We'll figure it out later. Right now, let's go talk to Quistis. She doesn't deserve us talking behind her back about her problems." Eric stalked out of the room, Aiko one step behind him. He went over to the door to Quistis' room and knocked on it. "Quistis, this is Eric. We need to talk." No answer came, and, almost on instinct, he turned the doorknob, which opened. He entered the room cautiously and saw no one. The door to the bathroom was open, and he walked over there and peered in; no one was there.

Aiko stepped up to his elbow and grinned. "Hoping you'd catch her in the bathtub?"

Eric did not dignify that with a reply. "Kai, Quistis is gone. Try to raise her on the earbeads. I think Aileen outflanked us." He stormed across the room, fists clenched, wanting to hit something. "Damnit. Why didn't I stay here?"

Kai switched Eric out of the net for a second and said to Aiko "Man, he's really wound up over her. What's the big deal about Quistis?"

"He must like the way that long skirt hugs her hips," she muttered.

"So, you're remembering what Norg and his headhunters did to you?" Aileen asked. "How they altered your mind so you forgot what happened in Deling City. That actually was rather clever…they had two layers of programming. The first was designed to cause you to literally think about something else in the event that you dwelled on your, ah, issues. The second was designed to reinforce that therapy with selective use of the GF. The more you activated the first level, the more the GF memory loss effects took hold. It excised the 'bad' memories from your mind. No wonder the Masters kept quiet."

"I never really forgot," Quistis replied, "I decided to become an Instructor to help train SeeDs that would survive what you and Tamara couldn't. I remember that now. But I was too lenient on my students, because, perhaps, I didn't want them to become SeeDs." And that was why she found herself, on two separate occasions, going to the place that reminded her of Aileen on the night of the last two-inauguration parties. "It was buried in my mind, Aileen, yet it was still there."

Aileen punched Quistis across the jaw, hard enough to send her flying into the heavy-alloy walls of the communications tower, some twenty feet away. "I'm touched, Quistis, truly. You vaguely remember me. Do you think that can make up for what happened to me after I died?"

Quistis activated her earbead and hoped that Aileen was in its range. The time for confessions was over; now she needed Eric and the others to hear what was going on. "Kai, this is Quistis," she subvocalized.

"Quistis! Oh, man, where are you?"

"The communications tower. Tie Eric and Aiko into this conversation; I want them to hear this." Aloud, she said to Aileen "You haven't explained how you came back, Aileen. I only think it's fair that you tell me what happened to you."

Aileen laughed. "It isn't important what you think is fair, Quistis. I will tell you, though, because it suits me."

"Eric! I found Quistis!"

It was fortunate that the earbeads were designed to minimize volume on their users, Eric knew, because it sure sounded as if Kai was shouting. "Where is she?" he asked, leaving Quistis' room at nearly a sprint. Aiko, who had collected her combat staff at Eric's behest, followed as he headed for the elevators.

"The Dollet Communications Tower. She wants you to listen in-I think she's with Aileen."

Eric had reached the elevator and the RMP officer that guarded it. "Where are you going, sir?" he asked.

Eric locked eyes on the officer, who had six inches and forty pounds on him, and said "Through you if you don't get out of my way." The officer studied the young swordsman and figured that there were better ways to collect his pension. He stepped aside and let them pass, waiting until Eric and Aiko had entered the elevator before he got on his radio and called Commander Fullar.

"Do you recall the last order you gave me, Quistis?" Aileen asked, almost coyly. "You told me to summon a GF. That was what I was doing when the bullets struck me-I was connected directly to the GF. Somehow, my mind, my very being, was transmitted along that connection to the sub-etheric plane that is home to the GF. I was cast, bodiless, formless, into the void."

Eric and Aiko, hearing this, had reached the lobby when they heard Fullar shout "Halt! HALT!" Neither paid him much heed as he and four other RMP officers closed in on them from the other side of the lobby. They were on the sidewalk outside before Fullar and the officers caught them. "Where are you going?" Fullar snapped, trying to hide the fact that he was out of breath.

Eric turned and said, calmly, "The target has Instructor Trepe at the Communications Tower and we're going to get her. If you want to come, I don't care. But your mandate does not prevent us from going after her." And if it did, Aiko thought, you would go anyway.

Fullar turned to one of his men. "Get us two vehicles, now." He turned toward Eric and said, imperiously, "I'm not missing this battle."

Eric, amazingly, smiled. "I wouldn't dream of it, Commander."

"So there I was, alive and aware in the void," Aileen explained, "not even worthy of the notice of the GF that waited there to be summoned into the real world. And that was the worst part, Quistis, because the void isn't really meant to be experienced by human mind. There is no way to tell time, because time is not a function of the sub-ether. It has been years since I died for you, but those years felt like millennia. And so I waited into the void, until I met him. Lord Urizen."

In the front passenger seat of a car being driven by Allin Fullar at top speed through Dollet's narrow streets, Eric went pale.

"Lord…Urizen?" Quistis asked.

"My lord and master. An entity of power that calls the sub-ether home. He found my bodiless form and realized that with some education, I could be a weapon. Once, of course, I swore my eternal loyalty to him. It was after that that I came to understand just what I was working for. Urizen trained me in the art of understanding the sub-ether, but imagine the amount of cruelty one can inflict on someone in a world that knows no time, where a second can last forever." She trembled in fear. "Lord Urizen is a terrible master-and it's your fault that I am his toy!"

Fullar drove the car across the bridge that led to the hills outside of Dollet, where the tower was. Eric and Aiko listened in private to Aileen's confessions.

An aura of power appeared around Aileen then, the ground shaking beneath her. "You let me die, Quistis, and put me in the void where a beast enslaved me!" Her eyes brimmed with tears. "I am the toy of a demon and it's because of you. YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!!!"

So that's it, Quistis thought. A one in a million freak occurrence and she somehow manages to survive death, but only at the cost of her sanity. I'm just a convenient victim. She took Save the Queen in her hands and readied for battle. Which was when things got, well, not odd-she had left odd behind two days ago-but definitely strange. A grey miasma surrounded Aileen, hints of leathery wings swirling around her. And Quistis heard a voice that was not really a voice, more like a force that hammered words into her forebrain. "So, I am a demon, Aileen? Flattery will get you nowhere."

"Lord Urizen," Aileen sputtered in fear, "you said that I could kill her!"

"So I did. And you shall. However, I feel it necessary to remind you that you are to kill the swordsman and collect his blade-and he is coming. The time for playing is over, little toy. Use your fullest power on them and kill them." The miasma, the force, Quistis supposed, that was Urizen, disappeared like smoke on the breeze. "Eric," she whispered, "he wants you to kill Eric?"

"And take his sword. I am not certain why and I don't care."

Quistis frowned. "How do you take a physical object to something that lives in a void?"

Energy flared around Aileen's fists. "It doesn't matter, Quistis. Doesn't matter at all."

Half a mile away, Fullar driving through the twisting turns of the hillside road with a caution that bordered on the insane, Eric had had enough. He looked over his shoulder at Aiko and said, "Lord Urizen wants me. Can't disappoint him." He disappeared in a blur, reappearing an instant later outside the car before blurring up the hill. Fullar nearly wrecked the car in his surprise. "H-how did he do that? Can he teleport?"

"No," Aiko replied, "he's just really fast. You just couldn't see him." She looked up the hill and cursed whatever gods there were that Eric's father had been right.

Aileen hurled two blasts of energy at Quistis, which she hurdled, the power blasting a huge hole in the wall of the tower. She landed on her feet and cast a Flare spell at Aileen, a huge blast of elemental fire driving her backward into the rocky cliff that surrounded the tower. Quistis bounded toward Aileen, the chain whip screaming into her face, leaving a wicked welt. Aileen returned fire by hurling the blue spheres of power that she had first manifested at the fire cavern. Quistis dodged them, yet Aileen took advantage, appearing inches in front of Quistis. She thrust a hand out at Quistis and pure force hammered her backward. Quistis managed to find her feet and cast a Tornado spell that blew Aileen into the cliff side hard enough to cause a small landslide. Rocks covered her, and Quistis did not hesitate, casting Ultima. Maybe the combination of physical damage and Ultima will be enough, she thought. Quistis doubted it. Green fire ate at the hillside, and for a moment, Quistis dared to hope.

Then Aileen leaped free from the explosion and hurled a blast of power towards Quistis. Quistis avoided it by turning her head to the side, the bolt missing by inches. It soared past the tower and hit the ground behind it, a globular explosion lighting up the sky. Aileen landed in front of Quistis and said "Well, suddenly you're awfully calm. What happened?"

"She saw me."

Aileen looked over her shoulder and saw Eric standing at a low cut in the side of the cliff, his sword in his hand. " Did I hear that you wanted my sword?" he asked her.

"And how, pray tell, did you hear that?" Aileen asked.

Eric almost smiled. "That's none of your business."

Aileen howled in rage and fired a bolt of power at him. He blurred out of its way, an explosion roaring on the ridgeline. Eric reappeared yards away, and Aileen attacked him again, with the same result, only this time he appeared next to Quistis. "Hello," he said calmly. "We know what happened to you, Quistis, and what Norg had done to you. Kai found it out."

"That shouldn't surprise me. We'll talk about that later." She nodded towards Aileen. "Why does her master want Grieving Angel?"

"Haven't a clue," he lied. "We'll talk after she's defeated."

Aileen summoned the same sword and plate-armor that she had used to fight Eric earlier that day. Quistis wondered how she did that, if being part of the sub-ether allowed her that power. "Brave talk, little swordsman. You and her have used most every attack that you have and you haven't even hurt me yet. How will you beat me?"

"What makes you think we've used everything we have?" Quistis asked. "You don't have the slightest clue how many Blue Magics I could use, the spells I have drawn. And I have no clue how strong Eric is."

"Well, maybe that's true. But you have no idea of the kind of power that I have."

Squall and Rinoa came into the cockpit of the Ragnarok to find Selphie singing a song as she checked off items from her pre-flight checklist. All three of them had their best weapons-Rinoa wore Shooting Star on her wrist, he carried the gunblade Lion Heart, and Selphie's oversized nunchaku, Strange Vision, leaned against the back of the pilot's seat. Selphie waved at the other seats in the cockpit and said "Strap yourselves in, kids, we're nearly ready to go!"

Hang on, Quistis, he thought, we're coming.

Aileen rested her sword on her shoulder and gave both Quistis and Eric a withering gaze. "You see, my sub-etheric nature lets me see life as patterns of energy, and as such, I can read your power levels. You, Quistis, are maybe twenty times stronger than you were when I was alive. And you, pretty boy, you're good at hiding power, but I can tell you're hiding maybe twenty percent of your power. If I were you I would let it out. You see I hate to waste power-we SeeDs are trained that way, right? -so I've only used enough power to be just stronger than you." She raised her right hand, showing her fingers to them. "Five percent, Quistis. That's all the power I've used so far. Five percent of my power."

Quistis felt a single drop of cold acid fear fall on her heart. "You can't be serious," she said. "You're only at five percent?" She looked over at Eric and asked, knowing that he would have an answer, "Is she telling the truth?" Eric took a tighter grip on Grieving Angel and simply nodded. My god, Quistis thought. Only five percent. We can't possibly beat her.

Aileen assumed a combat stance, the same basic stance that SeeD combat instructors taught in the first combat courses. "Would you like to see my true power before you die, Quistis? Because this time, you will die. And I don't care if you die well or not, so long as you die."