Final Fantasy VIII 1. Zell Dincht, to Squall Leonhart

Disclaimer: I in no way own Final Fantasy VIII. Don't sue; I'm simply an E6 in the USN, therefore I have no money. Ha.

A/N: Challenge fic, delivered via one flame lit under my buttocks on LiveJournal. This one's for you, TheinCatVu! And sorry it took so damned long – I started off well, but then Zell moved in and kicked the snot out of the original idea. My original three prospective writings of this fic (one over 10 pages long by the time of tossing) were thrown fitfully away in order to slam first person POV on this bugger instead of the third I was striving to write. So it's much shorter than originally planned, and in an entirely different perspective. But in my opinion, it's much sweeter. Because this managed to actually pretty much write itself in the span of two hours. Because Zell is awesome. Zell equals love.

Perspective's a bit weird – Zell's mostly talking about himself and his thoughts, directing it all towards Squall. Because they're friends. At least, they're friendly enough that Squall didn't seriously maim Zell for glomping his waist and shoving his face into his crotch.

So blame not the innocent Wends, blame Zell. Ask _him_ why this fic ended up as short as it did; throttle _him_ for it going strangely wrong (and not focusing enough on the RisU controversy) and yell at _him_ for it taking forever and a day.

But ply him with hotdogs first, otherwise he might get violent.

_-BEGIN FIC-_

You know, I just don't get it.

The longer we go on, the more confused I get.

Once upon a time, I'd thought we were the forces of good. Heroes! We were the world's saviors, here to kick butt and take names all in the name of righteousness. People would love us and thank us and shower us with praise for jobs well done. They'd cheer at the mention of SeeD, the guys that make everything great!

Yeah, silly childhood fantasy. I know, I know. But still, a guy can dream, can't he?

That's why I begged Ma to let me join up. The Garden, that big shining epitaph of all that was great on the island, sparkled in the sun like some beacon of hope sent by God. The SeeDs that came from it were the safeguards of the city, keeping the monsters at bay and keeping live an easy, breezy luxurious play of comfort day after day, year after year.

I'd grown up idolizing their heroics, wanting to be as great as them. I mean, who wouldn't? Those dudes could take on T-Rexaurs and live to laugh about the tale over beers! They're awesome!

It was a boy's ultimate fantasy. No longer doomed to be a normal human being, a businessman or a retail worker or a fast-food fry-cook or an (ugh) accountant, but a hero! Like a guy from a comic book, here to make the day right. That was SeeD. That was my dream.

And that stayed my dream. Even as I trained, I astutely ignored some of the more disturbing classes we were driven through. Focus on the fighting, focus on the right. That was my policy. Learning martial arts was fantastic – the other stuff in the curriculum was just there to temper the awesomeness that was learning to pummel anything in existence to putty with nothing more than my body.

Like when we learned how to torture people to pry information out of them. How we learned how many pieces of the body and how much blood can actually be lost before a person finally succumbs to death. How we learned dancing and table-manners for the sole purpose of infiltrating high-up functions to get beads on targets and learn the politics of the world before taking someone really high up down, so we could weigh the repercussions of our actions before taking them. When we were instructed on how to fool polygraph tests, evade truth serums' effects, swiftly and efficiently kill other human beings before they could dare utter even the barest hint of a sound.

Well, the bad guys have to suffer sometimes, right? So we can get all the guys involved? So no more wrongs could be committed?

That's what I thought.

I tried to rationalized the reasoning behind learning obscure, ancient operating code that sounded more like adopted rhetoric from the days of medieval assassin corps than modern day heroic policing forces. I buried that nagging feeling in my gut every time we learned how to most swiftly put down our fellow companions in the event of their capture, how to enter any establishment whether it be residence or locked-down secret stashes without detection, how to build your body's natural resistance up to the point where even the world's most toxic of poisons (like Malboro's breath) wouldn't instantly kill you.

Hell, I even kept my silence when we started learning about the weird shit. Like how to tether monsters into your own skull and strip power from them, how to feed them the pain-flooded screams and dying agony of your enemies to encourage them to relinquish more of their power to your body, how to strip magic from other creatures and from the planet itself and engrain it in your own head then let the monsters in your brain weave it into your marrow, through your blood and along your nerves. I willingly took on Quezacotl, trying not to be disturbed as I felt her lightning slither under my skin and her wings press against my flesh. Her voice was soft, a dove's coo laced with the thunderous clashing and booming of the world's most powerful storms, whispering quietly as the lightning flashes exploded behind my eyes and the thunder claps roared in my ears.

Even as she whispered her thanks for my destruction of other creatures, rewarding me with more and more of her power, I wouldn't let myself think about the potential consequences of what I was doing. I happily went with the flow, boyish excitement driving me to kill more and more if only to find out what wonder she'd reveal to me next.

Any motivation I might have had as a cadet to question SeeD and Garden faded with the introduction of Guardian Forces into my head. That unearthly power, that inhuman whispering, that simmering comfort in my blood made everything seem so utterly and completely alive! Electric, baby! Complete ecstasy!

With my buddies at my side, I didn't have any reason at all to question anything. They were convinced that SeeD was right. So, by covenant, was I.

When Squall Leonhart, most badass dude in our class, glares at people for even hinting that something in the curriculum might seem a bit odd, you just don't flippin' argue. You swallow down your question, realize that you just looked like a total pansy, and keep goin' with the flow. You were with it. Quez agreed with you. And with her soft comforting voice singing in my brain, who the hell am I to argue?

I didn't question anything during those first furtive years. The training as a cadet. The test to become a fully-fledged SeeD. Who cared how many people got slaughtered? Bastards were up to no good in Dollet, terrorizing the city for some nefarious purpose. We were there to thrash the ever-livid crap outta them, and boy did we ever! Lousy no good Galbadian flunkies.

Then the entire ordeal with the Sorceresses. Never questioned none of that, either. Not even when we ended up facing down Seifer. Our old school chum (alright, more like school-yard bully that I would have gladly beat down on any day that ended with a 'y' if it wouldn't get me in trouble with the Headmaster), siding with the evil witch that was out to thrash every good person in the world. He'd clearly been manipulated by the lure of evil, sucked into its dark recesses. So he was an enemy now. Yeah, he was a guy who once was on our side, but he was an ass. No big loss there. I didn't want him dead, but if he was going to stand against us… well, I'd take him down with my fists personally (that is, if you didn't have his personal vendetta against the guy).

Sucked old Garden buddies away from us and flung them into her pit of evil? Nope, no questions about killing her. Especially not when she had us thrown in the D-District prison. Yeah, we'd moved against the new leader of Galbadia, but damn it, she's the one that killed the President!

Alright, the Pres was kind of a dick, but still. She outright killed the man and took his nation from his cold, clammy fingers!

Then she damned near killed you!

A guy could almost say that was self-defense seein' as how he beat the ever-livid snot out of her protector and then her, but… c'mon.

And then she did the lowest thing ever – she tried to blast our Garden away! Evil right there, I tell you! Good damned thing our Garden could fly; one vessel of hope could survive in the dark days she was trying to bring into being.

Guess the first time I really started to question stuff was when we learned about Master NORG.

Yeah, they were minor questions, but they were still questions.

So we weren't actually meant to be mercenaries out there to make life better for people? We were just developed to face against the Sorceresses? NORG had us taking contracts so we could financially support ourselves?

The hell?

But… still, Garden was a beacon of beauty in a dull and hopeless world. We… we were SeeD. We did what we did for fiscal rewards, but we did what we did because it was right, right?

And… Fujin and Raijin… we had to fight them because they were with Seifer, who was evil now. Right? Even though something about that fight felt so very, very wrong.

They were just there for their friend, trying to keep him safe and return him to the Seifer he used to be.

You know, I could actually support that. Seifer before was an idiot and a jerk, but he wasn't the wicked guy we met before.

Even when we all met in the ruins of Trabia Garden and Irvine told us of our shared history with the woman we'd been trying like hell to put into a grave with a bullet in her brain. She'd been trying to take over the world! Or something. Hell, I don't really know what the hell she'd been really up to, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn't good. No way can you call ordering missile strikes against Trabia and Balamb Gardens good! Screw that noise, man.

She may have been our Matron, but she was trying to take over a nation and demolish all others. Right? I mean, what other reason would she have for trying to destroy those other nations' Gardens? For ending all of those lives? She might have once been our gentle and kind Matron, a woman who was practically our mother, but she was doing wrong by the world. Garden says she goes down, so she goes down, damn it. Sentiments be damned. I couldn't begin to describe how frustrated I'd been with Irvine at that moment in time.

Then… it slowly started unraveling.

We learned that Guardian Forces consume our memories. The voices that rampaged through my brain, that held my strength to my muscles and comforted me when nightmares threatened to ravage my sanity, somehow were doing me harm.

As you said, Squall, we couldn't leave them behind. We needed their strength to combat Sorceress Edea, the new incarnation of our once beloved Matron. You were willing to pay the price for their strength. If the perfect SeeD, the hero I always strove to be more like, was going to make that sacrifice, so would I. After all, how important were those memories? Obviously not very, if they were so easily frittered away. At least, that's what the GFs said.

And who was I to believe? The worrisome voice of Irvine, or the combined chorus of my dear Quezacotl, my buddies the Brothers, cute little Carbuncle, and my newest companion, Pandemona? Against that cacophony, Irvine's drawl stood no chance.

Still, that revelation sat like a lead weight in my stomach. Carbuncle would smother my nightmares and Quezacotl would sing sweetly when distraught ran through my brain, but that heaviness wouldn't go away.

Garden had taught us to depend on the Guardian Forces, to accept them and befriend them and harness their strength as our own. We'd been conditioned to live with them, to serve them and receive those powers they would grant us with gratitude and glee.

I wouldn't stop it for the world, though! We needed them. We needed to take her down.

We threw our lot in entirely with you, going so far as to take B-Garden into direct combat with G-Garden. Two mobile Gardens duking it out. Helluva impressive thing, if you ask me! It was, like, woah! Light and crashing and people being flung all over the damned place with magic and weapons all hundreds of feet above the ground! Super intense, man. And super convincing.

What kind of 'kind Matron' would have an entire Garden beat itself against ours? What kind of good woman would send trained soldiers against our SeeDs and our cadets? None! Ha! So that drove any doubt about killing her ass out of my soul and let me, accompanied by the collective roars of my Guardian Forces, to guiltlessly storm that Garden and kill anyone who stood in my way. With you at my side accompanied by your steadfast (we call her your lover, actually) Shiva, Ifrit, the creepy-as-get-out-but-they-so-get-along Diablos and the pup we picked up who he said was to be referred to as Cerberus, I was confident we'd pull through. And with Rinoa running along after us with Angelo and Leviathan and Siren resting in her mind, we were golden. Quistis, Selphie and Irvine, giving their minds temporary breaks from the GFs, were hot on our heels, proving to the world that even without paramagic they certainly weren't slouches at what they do best, either! People's heads were exploding left and right from the impact of shotgun shells, flopping off their bodies thanks to the crack of a whip or just crunching as a flail smashed them into oblivion.

You know, only Rinoa looked queasy through it all. I'd always figured that it was because she just wasn't that used to battle. After all, the rest of us were Garden trained. And while Irvine wasn't a SeeD, he was a sniper trained by G-Garden – he's guaranteed to have seen plenty of blood in his life.

So we rampaged through the Garden, leaving a river of red in our wake, right up to Seifer and Sorceress Edea.

I got the strangest twist in my stomach when Seifer fell. I noticed that even you faltered. None of us was quite willing to walk up to him and drive a blade through his heart, a fist through his head, or what have you, I guess.

I attribute that to the fact that the Sorceress immediately jumped in and started to pummel the daylights out of us.

She was tough, but we took her down. It was the perfect moment! We were the heroes! Galbadia's suppressor was down, and everything would be alright now, right? Even though Rinoa fell and all… but that could be blamed on the Sorceress, and we'd figure out a way to bring her back!

And then… Sorceress Edea wasn't bad.

She was possessed by another Sorceress.

And… she was Headmaster Cid's wife.

I think it was then that my world really started to fall apart.

Yeah, you broke down and we ran our asses off to bring Rinoa out of her coma and all. That wasn't what started really wrangling my grasp on my loyalty to Garden from my shaking fingers.

Nor was it the movement of Lunatic Pandora or the Lunar Cry. That was… it was almost like icing on the cake, you know? Like confirmation that we were actually doing a good thing. I think. Because… ah hell, I don't know. Because it was Sorceresses moving stuff to free each other and bring about the end of the world or something. Tell you the truth, I didn't really get it. Still don't. You could probably bore everyone on Hyne's green world to tears for a day and a half explaining it to us all, but I just don't have the patience to put it all together.

First thing was that crackpot Odine. That… that really shook my firm belief in good and evil.

See, guess I'm just not a good SeeD at all. You're perfection. Me? I'm… just a pair of fists at your side, I guess.

You firmly believe what Garden taught us. That 'good' and 'evil' are nothing but a set of words used to justify people's beliefs and actions. Like the old 'they're evil, so what we're doing is justified because we're good' edict.

The exact kind of thing I believe in.

Seeing that guy working with Esthar, entrusting Rinoa to him when we knew from the dream sequences we were having that he was up to nefarious shit with Esthar and Adel and Ellone and everything, was just nauseating.

How could that wicked little bastard be part of the solution? How could he be working with the good guys? It didn't seem possible! It was so very wrong!

Like… Seifer doing everything he was doing.

I had many long nights filled with Quezacotl's singing in my head, lulling me to sleep. Otherwise I probably would've just sat up all night long pondering whether Seifer or all of us were the bad guys.

After all, he was just trying to defend Matron.

And because of that fierce loyalty to what he perceived to be right, he left himself open to the Sorceress that was controlling her.

My GFs are probably the only reason I could keep going. Their busy selves worked like mad to consume my questions and eat the recollections I had of the rattling of the foundation of my faith in what we were doing.

And… that just set me up for my fall.

I'd been comforted so long by my Guardian Forces that I thought of them as surrogates. Surrogate friends, surrogate family, surrogate memories. Quez's song, Brothers' jokes, Carbuncle's cute squeaking as she ran in circles and Pandemona's soothing, warm breezes across my brain had me thinking of them as nearly harmless, as pleasant things to endure for the benefit of immense power at the price of a few measly memories I could easily do without.

Then we started finding the powerful ones.

Alexander, who had Rinoa whimpering and holding her head when she first junctioned him.

Doomtrain, who had Selphie staring blankly at the sky and humming songs even while battles raged around her.

Jumbo Cactuar, whose presence was a thorny jumble of movement and activity in my skull, shredding my brain with every twitch of his spiked body and tearing away memories left and right until even my Pa was left firmly in the dust (I barely remembered him last week, actually. The brain has amazing recuperative powers once you drop your GFs).

Tonberry King, who had Quistis twitching violently from time to time, her beautifully maintained professionalism strained and stressed by the pressure of having the lord of those murderous beings wrapped around her cerebral cortex.

Bahamut, who had Irvine snarling draconically at anything that stood in his way and blasting his way into battle without any preamble, thought or hesitation, a sneer of delight on his face as blood sprayed from his victims in messy, visceral fountains.

And… Eden.

Garden's lessons about paramagic, about the benefits of bringing the souls of those magnificent beasts we designated as Guardian Forces, really unraveled in my head the moment we faced off with Ultima Weapon and you dared to draw that thing.

I'd thought you'd died.

It was the first time I'd ever seen something drawn make blood spray from the drawer's nose, drain all color from your face, make your eyes roll straight back into your skull and your frame hit the ground with one nauseating crack as your skull solidly connected with hard bedrock. You were out for almost a full minute, Squall. You left me and Rinoa to face that damned thing (thank the heavens she'd sacrificed enough life to Alexander for him to grant her the power to revive me, or else I'd be a serious goner).

When you'd regained your feet, you were wobbly and dizzy, but so driven in battle that even I was scared. You moved like a demon possessed by Hyne himself, your voice an unearthly howl of rage, your eyes damned near shining in the blackness that we were fighting in. And you don't even remember it, do you?

The next battle you'd entered, I was thankful that I'd taken a leak a few minutes prior to it else I would've seriously stained my shorts.

I had to believe it was the Guardian Force in your head. I had to!

Because there's no way Squall, heroic and good and tempered Squall, would leap onto a _person_ of all creatures and begin to eat him _alive._

I still can't clear the screaming from my ears. Every time I look at you, I hear it ringing somewhere back in my mind, and can't help but shudder.

And then there was that time. You probably don't remember it – that time I volunteered to help you out? That one time you lobbed your junctions onto me so you could get his own head straight, when we were running amuck in Ultimecia's castle….

I don't remember shit.

I recall the horrible agony as that _thing_ forced its way into my brain, as every other Guardian Force in my head (far to many for me to really be sane at that point in time) was forcibly pressed out of her way. Eden's way. That edifice of destruction. Her voice was no song, no joke, no cute chattering, no gentle breeze, no thorny piercing. It wasn't an icy snowfall, a fiery snort, a creepy diatribe on the purpose of living creatures moving on their transient journey from nonexistence to nonexistence or a triple-voiced howl. It drowned out all of those, screaming and screaming and screaming for destruction and death and decimation, colored with rage and hate and desire. Wetness (I found out later from Irvine that my eyes were leaking blood) coated my cheeks as she ravaged my brain, her sharp teeth snapping through my lobes and her steel wings tearing my memories, her sharp torso imbedding itself into my spinal column and _willing me to move._

I… God, I was her prisoner.

She moved me like her puppet, her will easily overpowering my own, her memories overwriting mine and her screams becoming my own.

How long she was in my head is lost to the sands of time. After those first few moments, everything became black. I think whatever section of my brain was suppose to store that information was permanently damaged.

All I know is that you took her back, and you've held her ever since. Said something about me being enough to freak even you the hell out with her junctioned to me.

Heh.

Funny how you took her back right before we waltzed into Ultimecia's courtroom. Or throne room. However a person would choose to label it. So I remember that clearly. The entire battle against her.

The crackling of her voice as she cursed us.

The fear… oh dear God, the fear….

Squall, didn't you see the fear in her eyes?

Like she knew we were there to kill us.

Like she recognized us, and was wondering why we were going to kill _her._

Like we were the ones who deserved to die.

Didn't you see the way she looked at you, Squall? Like she recognized you? Like….

Like she loved you?

She looked at you just like Rinoa does. Those same eyes staring at you with longing and worship. With fear when you come back coated in blood and smelling of sweat and whatever it is the creature you keep in your skull without restitution drove you to devour.

Did you not hear the quivering in her voice when she saw Eden? When she saw LionHeart? Did you not hear the tears in her sobbing final words to us?

When she cried that time would not wait….

Was she crying because we were killing her? Because you were killing her? Because you were freeing her? Because we were stopping her from avenging herself and her brethren upon the world? Like we were preventing the justice I so firmly believe in from actually being served?

You know, sometimes thinking is the worst thing you can do.

Faithful compliance to a preexisting notion can sometimes be a fantastic thing.

Because when I start thinking, I start confusing myself.

Sometimes I'll just sit in the training center on a limb of a tree too high up for even the T-Rexaurs to fuck with me. Just sit there and stare into space, pondering everything that's left in my memory. There's more of it now than there was when we'd returned from Time Compression, thankfully. Of course, when we'd come back from that fiasco, I could barely remember my own name. Garden was a cool new place with an awesome array of new people. The librarian girl made me a huge pile of hot dogs and fresh bread rolls to see if somehow that delicious food would help draw the Zell Dincht she remembered back from whatever time compressed hell had swallowed him.

Didn't work. What did work was segregation from the Guardian Forces. Took almost two years of time to recuperate after dropping every last junction I'd had. Pressed them all into the common drive of the Balamb Computer System, just waiting for some other poor sap to draw them free and begin a lovely relationship with them, sacrificing his brain, his morality and his soul in return for the privilege of power.

And now I can't help but sit and think. I've got a lot of time on my hands to do that, too.

You won't let me go out on missions anymore. Just because I refuse to take up another junction ever again.

Yeah, I do miss Quezacotl's voice. A lot. I loved hearing her song in my dreams.

But I love my memories more.

But… you can't release me from B-Garden, either.

Because with my training, even without junctions, I'm far too dangerous to leave unsupervised. And Dr. Odine has proven with his questionable research that the damage left from junctioning high-powered Guardian Forces might be enough to permanently impair the junctioner.

You and everyone else keep me here, like some mouse in a cage, observing me for any indication that I might possibly be a danger to humanity. All from… you said it was a few days? A relatively short time with Eden demolishing my brain.

Or maybe, as you suggest, from the force you had to exert to tear her from my mind again. Seems she'd liked me more than you. Kinda funny, neh?

So I'm damaged goods, whether from the time Eden spent in my skull ripping my soul to pieces or from the rending of my mind when she was torn free of me. Not allowed to live amongst normal people because, according to everyone around here, I'm probably incapable of being normal anymore. Not allowed to be a SeeD because I want normalcy so much I won't junction another GF ever again.

I've become a third party to it all, Squall. Watching. Pondering. Thinking.

I've been thinking that Ultimecia was truly unnerving. The way her face contorted when she looked at you, her eyes squinting slightly, her lips pursing as she beheld exactly which SeeD stood his ground before her. The way her voice hitched when she spotted you before her precipice. The way her bottom lip trembled for a second before she began to scream her anguish against SeeD.

I've been thinking that the Sorceresses had a point. During all this downtime I've had, I've been reading. No cracks about how you don't think I'm capable, please. I really have.

You know, I've been reading about the witch-hunts and the Sorceress Executions. About the burnings, the whippings, the stonings. About the torment of any woman who was suspected to be a Sorceress, whether or not she held that power. They've been repressed and tortured for the _way they were born_ since the beginning of civilization. They can't help it… they can't change it. They are who they are. Matron is proof of that. _Rinoa_ is proof of that. They're either forced into servitude by those who are more powerful, or accept their power to alleviate that poor other of the burden of continued life. Granting freedom by accepting the scorn of being a Sorceress. There's something… noble in that.

The fact that we have to keep Rinoa's true nature under wraps, that we have to denounce the continuing existence of Matron Edea Kramer, proves that this world hasn't changed. That despite all we did, the world's still a cruel place that would crush them simply for how they were born and what they're _capable_ of, not because of what they're _doing._

Justice… wasn't served. Not for the Sorceresses. Granted what Ultimecia was attempting to accomplish was extreme, but… couldn't we have found another solution? One that didn't involve butchering every woman who dared to cast a spell at us during our journey through Time Compression?

How many others did we murder?

I've been thinking that Ultimecia had a strange fixation with you. She stared at you, she focused on you, she drew you into the battle last, she chose you as the focus of her spell that would draw our strongest imagining into being. I sure as hell know I didn't imagine a huge winged lion named Griever. I was thinking of hot dogs.

She drew you into battle only after Quistis, Selphie and Rinoa had fallen, leaving you with Irvine and me. She had quaked when she'd taken Rinoa and flung her into the time stream, almost quivering before your rage. Her attacks flagged. I doubt you'd noticed – Eden was singing her song of apocalyptic destruction in your brain. I know… I can still hear it, even though I haven't had her in my skull for years.

She then continued to focus on me and Irvine, leaving you to pummel the crap out of her with relatively few repercussions. And then….

Then she followed you through time.

Don't you find that a bit… strange? That of everyone, she followed you? She was pounding the _shit_ out of me… shouldn't she have followed me to finish the job? No. She followed the guy she almost seemed fixated on _not_ killing.

And you lead her right to Matron, starting the circle. Starting Garden. Starting SeeD.

Weird.

I've been thinking about how Garden still exists, even though the threat of the Sorceresses is apparently now part of a bygone era. It's still here. SeeD still exists. Balamb's Garden still haunts the skies.

Whenever we pass over land, people come out to stare. People come out to cheer. People point and scream in terror. People faint in shock and fear.

We're… not heroes.

We're a bane to whoever's on the other end of the contract.

We're a bane to the families who try to stay together, who simply can't owing to finances or circumstances far beyond their control.

We're snatchers of children, murderers of children. We train children to be killers, and then send them into battle to die.

And you keep going.

Keep taking those contracts, keep taking those missions, keep yourself out of the office designated yours by your position as Commander to ravage the fields and ensure the completion of every assignment Garden takes on.

Keep slaughtering everything that lies in your path when you're beyond this Garden's walls, bolstering the awe-inspired terror that courses through the ordinary folks of the world when they hear the name Squall Leonhart.

Keep demolishing as Eden dictates, supporting the horror felt by the world when B-Garden drifts out of darkness with its halo glowing under a white vessel sailing through shadow, a promise of death in the depths of night to any who dare to wrong those it houses or those who hold its servitude in a bloodied contract.

And I can do nothing but stand in the sidelines, staring with a passivity brought on by belonging to neither those people who fear nor those who bring it.

Strange, how much things change. They go from heroic and great to questionably wicked when reflected on.

Time moves, twisting and turning everything into oblivion. Time Compression makes everything topsy-turvy, and a guy's left scrambling to figure out where his moral compass is pointing and what the hell his feet are on.

My foundation crumbled completely.

And I can only stare at you as you continue to stand upon those tiny pieces, steadfastly believing them to be as stable as the planet over which this Garden flies. God, I wish I could save you all. Especially you.

You've been my friend for so long, Squall. Even though you had a piss-poor way of showing it, I knew. I still know. And that's why, even though I know I'm nothing but a prisoner in a shiny flying cage, I'm accepting of it if it keeps me close to all of you.

Only problem is that you've been avoiding me these days. Because whenever I see you, I ask you to divulge yourself in conversation with me. I want to share what I've thought of. I want to see if what I've figured out fits in with the plans of the universe that you've got drawn out in your own head.

It's disturbing to you, isn't it Squall? The mindset I have now?

You feel you've lost a friend, don't you?

I feel the same way, buddy.

I… idolize you. You're the perfect SeeD. You're my role model in just about everything.

But you're also the person I so fervently wish I was nothing like, that I'm so afraid I share far too many similarities with.

We're both SeeDs. We're both heroes who saved the world from Time Compression.

We're both murderers. We're both slaves to Guardian Forces, you in your continued reliance upon them and continued junctioning with Eden and me with my fervent fear and adamantly maintained distance from them.

Just a couple years ago, I thought I was an ordinary guy in an ordinary Garden with ordinary friends and ordinary GFs in my brain.

Funny how much a guy can change with just a twist of time.

_-end-_

Reviews are, as always, appreciated! Thanks for sticking with this 'till its end.


	2. Squall Leonhart, to Zell Dincht

Disclaimer: I in no way own Final Fantasy VIII. Don't sue; I'm simply an E6 in the USN, therefore I have no money. Ha.

A/N: Happy birthday, Thien! :D I remember you wanting this POV following the original challenge fic, which has suddenly become chapter 1. So here you go!

By the way, this is intended to be a second one-shot fic. I know that makes zero sense, but… what the heck. Twist of Time was meant to stand on its own, and this 'second chapter' is intended to be the same. It's just that as this IS tied directly with the original fic, I didn't want to have them separated in my fic listing. :P

POV is Squall. Situation is placed as being directly after one of those conversations you can only assume Zell's having with him in the first installment of 'Twist of Time.' Squall mentally challenges Zell's assumptions and answers his queries. Short-ish, like the original because I refused to put more than 2 hours into it. I need to clear my sinuses too often to spend a full day on it, and I'm in the middle of a military transfer (yay.).

For full impact, I wrote this while listening to 'The Beginning is the End is the Beginning' by the Smashing Pumpkins. I highly recommend combining the two. Because that song is simply flippin' awesome. And it's just eerie how well the lyrics of that song fit in with the darkest aspects of Final Fantasy VIII.

_-BEGIN FIC-_

She whispers softly in my daydreams. Nonsense. Illusions. Fallacies.

A whisper, a scream, a diatribe promising death to all around me. The soft scrape of steel angel wings over what remains of my mind. The stabbing pain of her shifting, her nestling in my mind a continual work in progress.

It's a pain I've come to associate with life. A voice I've become numb to. A scream of rage and decimation that I only allow to manifest itself when I'm on the field, my fervent desire to maintain my Garden's pristine and flawless record of mission completion intact. A trickle of blood that dribbles down my throat, a crazed abandonment of my gunblade and reliance on movement that I can't for the life of me control that has become an affirmation of the continuation of normalcy.

She who can overcome the wills of any mortal who dares to junction her rests quietly in my head these days, her belly glutted and her appetite for destruction satiated with quick sorties into the droves of humanity to maintain peace through terror.

You have always been leery of me when she has danced in my brain. At times, my mind comes to what I hope are ridiculous conjectures – that you are jealous of me, wishing her for her power to course through your veins once more and make you truly indestructible and truly inhuman. That you lust for her again, as I know I lust for Shiva, my sacrifice of her to the Balamb Garden computer's common drive for regular SeeD usage and cadet training coming only after Eden's whispers and Cid's begging convinced me that relinquishing my Guardian Forces was the best choice I could make.

Or perhaps you fear that I will lose control, as you did. When she moved you in Ultimecia's castle, taking control of your body and willing you to fight and devour as she saw fit.

You simply don't realize the truth – she and I function as one. We have the same goals, the same purpose. The very purpose of SeeD.

Regulation and salvation of the world. Peace maintained through terror. Sanity held in place by a whirlwind of madness.

You've lost your focus. You've lost your nerve. You've become a singularity, a SeeD who has chosen to give up your power because of your fear of Guarding Forces. You fear what they do to the human mind. You fear what they allow you to accept.

You fear this Garden and the very edicts under which it operates. You see it as an edifice of wickedness, a den of darkness which has as its sole function to plague the world with nightmares and death. I realize this. And for this, I pity you.

Why don't you understand? In order to be wicked, you necessitate evil. Such an ideal doesn't truly exist. It's a dream, an ideology devised by those who would stand against any other to justify their actions and seal their convictions. You relate a lack of humanity with the idea of evil, but such couldn't be further from the truth.

SeeD understands this. They understand that in order to defend humanity from its own errors we need to be above humanity, removed from humanity, as pure and unbiased as the Guardian Forces we join with. Hence why they obey without question.

You're the only person on this Garden who's ever questioned anything.

You've come to affiliate good and evil to everything around you, as all others in the world do. As everyone who's ever entered a conflict driven by faith, hope or righteousness has ever done. You've joined the masses in judging those that are not you or not aligned with your definition of 'good' based on your own mental imaginings.

You're a danger to humanity. You've been trained as we have, your physical conditioning far above and beyond anything anyone in the 'normal' world could hope to potentially turn away. If you've decided on an edict of 'good' that doesn't correlate with those around you, no one will be able to escape you should you chose to enforce your ideals. No one will be able to stop you. No one will be able to resist you.

And for people like you, that's why we still exist. That's why the world still needs SeeD.

We are all that are left. The last in a line of defenders, the last who stand above and beyond the thrums of humanity to save it from itself. SeeD, a wicked and erroneous force? Hardly. SeeD is beyond the ideals of good and evil, beyond the definition of those who would assign such flimsy ideology to their surroundings and livelihoods. We are above and beyond humans, becoming the very creatures we junction to defend people from people through blood and fire.

You understood this before. I wish at times that I could reconnect with that you that now lies buried deep in the past, to tell you how I truly enjoyed that incarnation of you and let the friendship I felt towards you seep through the ice walls that have been melted slightly by time and Rinoa's graceful intervention. Maybe it would help you. Maybe it would convince you to abandon this reckless and futile effort and take up your mantel as my most valuable fighter, to take up Quezacotl once more and let her thunder bury these doubts you've let yourself become inundated with.

Selphie hasn't changed. She still has her bubbly personality, her light-hearted laughter and devilishly mischievous grin. Always the optimist. Always the enthusiast. Nothing about her has changed – I still find her so charming in her odd, disjointed motions, a good friend and fantastic ally and fascinating subject just to watch and observe and ponder about. Even Eden softens her screams of death and rape when Selphie is around, the bright sunny girl granting me a soft reprieve from the constant racket that floods my brain. The girl is infectious with her cheer, beautiful in motion and deceptively strong under her tiny frame; if Rinoa had not been the one to grasp my heart and Irvine were to vanish from the picture, I can well imagine myself being deeply infatuated with her simply owing to the start contrast between her soul and my own, our seemingly impassible differences tethered together by remarkable similarities. Both deadly. Both inhumane. Both continually tethered to powerful Guardian Forces, her brain a permanent station to Doomtrain even as mine holds Eden's deadly angel wings at bay. Both SeeD.

Irvine hasn't changed. His viciousness, his desire to spill blood has faded a bit since he relinquished Bahamut to storage, but his steel nerves and wicked grin remain firmly intact. He's still a philandering fool, a blowhard with more confidence than any man should rightly have and an itchier trigger finger than any man I've ever had the misfortune to meet. He still believes in SeeD, in the work we do, in the age-old adage of the sniper – one bullet, one life. Granted he's never been one with the SeeD philosophy of the discrediting of the concepts of 'good' and 'evil' and believes firmly in the same strange 'justice' that you spout, but he's never let doubts stand between him and necessity. He still can take life's blows with an easy smile and a careless, sensual flinging of his auburn hair over a shoulder, a graceful lifting of Exeter onto his shoulder and a purse of his lips in ridiculous yet oddly charming confirmation of his attachment not only to Selphie, but to this Garden and to me.

Quistis hasn't changed. Her cool professionalism, her calm demeanor despite whatever events revolve about her in a cyclonic cacophony of chaos is still firmly intact. Her soft-spoken agreement meets my every suggestion, sometimes interjected with suggestions but never with doubt or denial. I know you've been speaking to her, attempting to sway her convictions just as you have been swayed by whatever has divulged itself in your mind after you gave up your Guardian Forces. I see her lingering curiosity. But that's all it is. Curiosity. She looks over Garden, over our cadets and our SeeDs, and any haunting questions she may have held in her mind fade and are overwritten with pride and loyalty. She has been part of this longer than any of us, after all. She instructed us, teaching us to be the SeeDs we have become. If she were to turn from us as you have done, she would not only be casting the veil of hypocrisy over Garden, but over herself as well. And if she were to do such, I truly have no idea how she would be able to come to live with herself – Quistis can be a surprisingly delicate person, her fragile ego lending itself to damage more easily than most can suspect. If nothing else, her loyalty will always remain firm owing to her desire to be loyal to herself, to affirm that she has done something great with her life and not simply filled a role in a grand lie as you profess.

No, only you have changed.

Even Rinoa has noticed this. She worries for you as much as I do. Perhaps it's a reflection of what she feels in my mind, her concern for the stability of her Knight whose function is to maintain her foundation and her focus on the real world rather than the mystic beyond of Hyne's Magic that she can so easily lose herself in driving her to touch what I keep hidden and assimilate it into herself.

She is a sweet, gentle soul. She feels my care for you as a friend and strengthens it in her own heart, encouraging me to watch over you and easing my frustration with your incipit whines of 'what if' and 'what about,' taking my urge to throttle you away so quickly that at times I hardly recognize that I had such a desire in the first place.

For she has changed. Unlike you, though, she's accepted Garden's place, accepted SeeD's role, and supports it. She recognizes that so long as she is no threat to the world, SeeD will be no threat to her; she realizes that under my direction, she has nothing to worry about.

Her worry has faded and washed away, the niggling that once nudged at her conscious concerning consorting with the 'dreaded' Balamb Garden and their 'murderous' SeeD forces as ingrained into her by popular Galbadian rhetoric demolished by her involvement with us. She sees us for what we are. She loves us for who we are.

Even with my Guardian Forces driving me to what you insist is the brink of delirium, she still finds love for me. She still holds her hand to me and smiles when I take it, curling her fingers into my clothing and kissing me with every ounce of desire and tenderness she expressed that first night we consummated our relationship after returning from this planet's dire and foreboding future.

My worries combined with hers drive me to worry. I can't bring myself to really express it; doing so would likely thrust you to return to our pathos, regardless of your desire to truly be among us again. Or lacking desire. I truly can't tell which exists in you at times. And the last thing I need is a SeeD whose heart truly isn't into his work, whose mind rejects the noise of the Guardian Forces, whose soul is devoid of the drive needed to follow my orders unconditionally, regardless of the danger or sacrifice.

I can't in good conscious tell you that I'm scared for you. You might make an irrational decision we would both regret.

Time has twisted you into something unrecognizable. You've ceased to be one of my SeeDs. At times, I find myself wondering if you've ceased to be the man I held as a dear friend.

Regardless, I will hold you here. I will watch over you. I will ensure that you are no threat to the world, that you are no threat to yourself. I will verify you do not step beyond your bounds, your confidence in your conditioning stemming from what you were capable of while tethered to your GFs rather than your body's true, unfortunately human limitations.

If you break, I will be here to catch you, watch you, and help you put the pieces back together. Me and Selphie – she would never leave, her ties to Doomtrain so strong she starts to dissolve into nervous tics when separated from it for more than a week. Me and Irvine – he would never leave Selphie's side, and has thusly tethered himself to Garden for the remainder of his life, as you have by virtue of your training. Me and Quistis – she is dedicated to the continuance of Garden's success, no matter how many intimate conversations and poignant questions you raise; assume for no single moment that she is leaning towards accompanying you in this mad quest for answers that simply do not exist. Me and Rinoa.

Because Rinoa is never going to become what you quietly whisper. She will never meet your assumptions. She will never fulfill your doubts and waking nightmares.

She will never unfurl black wings under stylized hair of silver from a tattooed back. She will be protected from the world, never driven to the hatred that flooded our future foe.

Because I am her Knight. I will defend her from the world, if necessary.

I will end it if required to keep her safe.

Eden will assimilate it, devour its hate until nothing is left if that's what it takes to save her from humanity.

Rinoa will be the last to fall, not the first victim of the world's hatred of her simply for her power. My Sorceress will rule over a tainted world of cracked dreams and dead illusions, if it will save her from the madness that infested our foe.

Eden's presence stirs viscously in my skull. I hear her chuckling in the back of my head, the soft deep womanly warmth buried in the screams of eternal agony and cries of damnation that color her psyche. Flitting in that darkness that grinds through my brain, the light and gentle touch of the pure white Sorceress lights my mind with Rinoa's approval of my decisions.

You are here until time's end. Because no matter how deep the twist in time runs, you are ours.

-end-

A/N 2: (STARES) Holy… urm… (finds it quite easy to shirk the urge to pat this version of Squall on his wee muffin head) That ended up considerably darker than I expected. Wowzer – I wrote Psycho!Squall. Why was that so easy?

And why can I so see him divulging into this after that sweet, beautiful ending of FF8 that I rewatch like an addicted junkie (seriously, I can watch the kiss for-flippin'-ever) if he continues to junction and lead the Garden to posterity? :D

Sorry if it's slightly disjointed, but I am a bit sick, listening to an awesomely wicked song and thinking of Uber!Dark!Garden and its affiliated slightly twisted inhabitants. :P Plus I wrote this a little out of order, filling in as inspiration hit. Because I'm sick. And I've been watching far too much My Little Pony lately (swift glance at Pony!Squall on her clipboard not but 2 feet away). Yay, random!

Anyway, hope you liked it! Reviews are awesome if you please. If not, then thanks for sticking it out until the end of this little story!


End file.

Final Fantasy VIII, Drama