Joe stood, tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for the computer to load. “In a place like this, you would think the damn thing would load a lot faster!” he snarled, shifting his weight forward to lean on the desk, as Paige covered their backs, knives drawn and at the ready. She shot him an amused glance.
     “You would also think that it’s designed to run slow in case of hackers.” She frowned. “Of course, that does mean people die in the mean time. Maybe there’s a password to get it to run faster?”
     “That could take HOURS!” Joe looked at her in horror.
     “Someone isn’t a very good hacker,” Paige grinned at the indignant look that crossed Joe’s face.
     “Wanna try?”
     “Nah, we’ll be here even longer.” Gray eyes met green ones. “Do it as fast as you can. You got me backing you up.”
     “There’s no time.”
     Both resistance members looked at the third member of their party. Her short brown hair curled slightly under at her cheek, and her eyes changed continuously from a warm human hazel brown to a cold, untouchable yellow. Her purple tanktop hugged her torso and stopped slightly above a pair of gray pants, and although there was something familiar about the girl, neither Paige nor Joe could place her.
     “What do you suggest?” Joe asked, careful to not let his eyes drift down her body lest she decimate him in one spell.
     Her eyes flashed, and the computer began to hum as the screens raced past. Then it stopped and the computer screen blinked multiple times then began to glow brighter. Paige and Joe turned to stare at it. Then it exploded.
     “The infirmary. As I thought.”
     The girl spun in a half-circle and disappeared.
                                *                              *                              *
     How long had he been laying here, unmoving, arm stretched toward the dead blond? It couldn’t have been that long, the alarm was still going, the red light still blinking. But it was forever. Forever as he lay there, unable to help the woman he…loved? Yes, loved. Seifer swallowed a sob as he gazed at her dull blue eyes, lifeless and unblinking, like a doll’s. What he wouldn’t give to have her there now, insulting him, arguing with him, teaching him, putting those librarian glasses on and then taking them off out of nervous habit rather than actual need. Hyne, he would give everything.
     “Everything,” he murmured, before his gaze switched to the blank stares of the SeeD team. Had they become faceless people in a faceless crowd in the wake of Quistis’ death?
     Yes. Quistis was everything to him. She was a friend, ready to listen, always ready to argue, always ready to forgive and smile. She wasn’t as cold or untouchable as everyone made her out to be, just focused. Of course, she had her faults…who didn’t? Like her inability to admit when she was wrong or her preoccupation with every mistake she’d ever made, her inability to lead because of her sense of fairness and compassion. Her nervous habits…the glasses that she didn’t really need, only wore to give her the appearance of authority, how when she talked her hands would twist together. Hyne…And he never got to tell her. Hyne!
     “EVERYTHING!” he shouted at the room, at the SeeDs, at Quistis.
     The sound of footsteps jerked his gaze from Quistis up to a slight black figure, seen through the changing light. A pile of cloth landed in front of him, and confused, he looked down at a familiar gray cloth. Underneath, a very familiar blue vest and a pair of black pants. Eyes narrow, he returned his gaze to the shadows.
     “I won’t look,” the female voice said, and sure enough, the shadow turned away. Seifer raised an eyebrow. If she was bent on helping him, she wasn’t doing a great job.
     “My legs are still tied.”
     “Oh, sorry.” Embarrassment evident in the high voice, the shadow went to him and studied the chains. “I don’t have the key, but…” Light zipped from the top of the silhouette to the pole, and Seifer felt the chains disintegrate around his legs. Gratefully, he got to his feet, and when the figure turned away, he quickly pulled his clothes on. With a gruff thanks, Seifer knelt beside Quistis, his hands stroking through her golden hair. Shaking…his hands were shaking. He closed his eyes, opened them again, and let out a heartbreaking yell, something akin to “no” in sound, but not actually a word.
     “Why? Fucking why?!” he said to nobody in particular, his low voice even deeper and more husky than usual. “Fucking WHY?!”
     A hand touched his shoulder and he jerked away. The hand stilled in the air and dropped. “Hurry up.”
     “What?” Seifer turned to look at the shadow, frowning with disbelief.
     “Hurry. I can get you out, before he comes back to kill you.” Hazel eyes loomed out of the darkness, and Seifer took a small step back, as the image of similar green eyes came back to him. “Squall. Zell. Seifer. Whoever you are. Hurry.”
     “What are you saying, Lila?”
     The young sorceress gestured wildly towards the door. “Hurry and go! I’ll try and make it look like an escape. Just go!”
     “Go?” Seifer’s voice was low, dangerously low. “GO? Go where?! Go fucking where, Lila?!” Her eyes changed to yellow and back to hazel, as if she was controlling who she was. “You want me to leave? You want me to leave my friends? You want me to leave my-Quistis? Is that what your brother would do? Well, I’m not your brother! Go waste your help on someone else!”
     A sudden wind whipped through the room, a sensation that, although definitely not new to Seifer, warned him nonetheless. “Don’t talk to me like that,” Lila’s voice had lowered to a death whisper, the normal little girl quality of it turning to a dark, cold imitation of it. Instead of taking heed as he had when serving Edea, Seifer turned his back and knelt down next to Quistis again. Almost immediately, he found himself thrown against the wall by the force of her moving eyes. Those same yellow eyes pinned him to the wall nearly two feet above the floor. “Don’t ever turn your back on me. I told you to go.” The yellow darkened to the human hazel again, and this time they were pleading. “Please will you go? I don’t want anyone else hurt.”
     “I-“
     A pair of green eyes glowed out from behind her momentarily, before her hazel eyes went blank and rolled up in the back of her head. Slowly, as if each bone was collapsing under her one by one, she crumpled to the floor. Seifer dropped from his position on the wall at the same time, and he quickly took a defensive stance as Martin Rueday appeared, smiling bemusedly above her. “It’s a sad, sad world when a person cannot even trust their own sister.”
     “Sad. Not as sad as power hungry madmen, but sad.”
     Rueday’s eyes flashed. “Eager to die, Knight?”
     “Obviously not as eager as you are to kill,” Seifer retorted, already wishing he had Hyperion at his side, in his hand, through Rueday’s heart…or at least the part of his body where a heart was supposed to be.
     Delicately, Rueday stepped over Lila’s still body and came to stand in front of Seifer, surveying the taller man with disdain. “At least I know why Sorceress Edea lost now. Tell me, how humiliating was it to lose in front of the one person who meant something to you?” The blow came fast and hard, and Rueday stumbled back, cupping his jaw, as Seifer unclenched his fist, eyes as hard as gems, but churning like the ocean on a windy day. Carefully, Rueday stood back up and lowered his voice,”Make no mistake, Knight. If I was as eager to kill as you think, you would not be standing here alive. In fact,” he gestured at Quistis off-handedly,”you’d look like her. Of course, watching you suffer would not be as amusing as it is right now, but be grateful for small favors.”
     “You fucking bastard!” Seifer dove at Rueday, fist catching the same side of the jaw as before, and they rolled to the floor, Seifer pummeling Rueday with a mad fury that even Zell would have appreciated and been in awe of had he been in full control of his senses. “I’ll fucking kill you!” Ready to land a blow that would surely break a few ribs, Seifer drew his fist back, but that was all Rueday needed. In response, Rueday lifted a hand and cast a Meteor spell that pulled Seifer away from him and into the magic dimension.
     Seifer covered his head with his arms in a poor attempt at shielding himself from the magical meteors, but the spheres continued to pound at him, and he cursed silently, profusely, as he lowered his body to the ground, trying to escape the beatings. Resigning himself to a slow and painful time in the dimension, Seifer closed his eyes, wincing every time a meteor hit him. Presently, he opened his eyes to find himself back in the infirmary, Rueday standing over him, bleeding.
     “Now you die,” Rueday declared and stretched out a hand at Seifer.
     Seifer glared back in defiance and staggered to his feet, recognizing the power the Rueday was summoning but unable to stop it. Rueday smirked in triumph.
     “Ultima.”