Final Fantasy VIII

Operation Witch Killer

Dreams, Vanity and Steel

Where am I? Is this a dream?

It's the sand beneath her feet that she notices first. She can feel the crunch of the granules and the heat of reflected sun light as she takes a few steps. But all of her senses are overwhelmed by the magnitude of information they receive. Her eyes are bombarded by the bright rays of the daylight. The sounds of the waves crashing against the beach engulf her ears, and she can smell the distinct scent of seawater. She also hears what she believes to be seagulls, although she sees no other living creatures. The young woman quickly makes her way down to the water where the sand is cooler; intent on providing relief for her sense of touch.

But as she makes contact with the water she's suddenly moving across the ocean at incredible speed. The young woman moves with such tremendous force that she only perceives the vastness of the ocean as she jets across it. Fear creeps into her mind as she realizes that her body seems to have simply vanished. A slight sensation of panic sets in because as she comes to the terrifying conclusion that she has no control over this supernatural out of body experience. How this is being done, and who or what is causing it she does not know. But she feels as if some divine force presses her on with inhuman power.

"I'll be here…"

A male voice, whispering into her ear, appears to originate out of thin air. The voice startles her. She sees no one and is certain no other human could be with her during this supernatural excursion.

"Why?" she inquires.

"I'll be 'waiting'…here…"

The ocean comes to an abrupt end and she now flies across a vast desert, the blue ocean water replaced with rust colored sand.

"For what!?" she demands. The cryptic messages from this invisible phantasm make no sense. She has no idea what the meaning of this ghostly monologue could be. The desert rapidly melts away into a field of long grass and flowers. The perfumes and scents from the vast amounts of plant life fill her nose and lungs. She still continues moving at god-like speed.

"I'll be waiting… for you…so…"

There is an erie pause as a moment of silence goes by before the phantom voice continues speaking.

"If you come here…you'll find me…"

Her movement comes to an abrupt stop in what seems to be the middle of this vast flower field. She looks down to see that she once again has physical form; a fact that she is grateful for.

My body is back but I don't know this place.

Looking around, she notices all the different hues of red, pink, yellow and orange the flowers have to offer. Suddenly the wind starts to pick up. It grabs billions of flower petals and tosses them around her, engulfing her in a spherical orb. She opens her hand as single petal lands and comes to rest in the middle of her palm. Closing her fingers around it, she is feels intense power that surges through her body and out through her hand, the heat of the energy taking her by surprise. The young woman opens her hand only to see a single ivory white feather float up into the air. It whirls around her, causing her body to spin in order to follow it's flight path. As the feather ascends up into the heavens, the sky darkens. She watches the feather go higher and higher until she can no longer see it. But then another object grabs her attention. A long, shiny object plummets from the sky and strikes the ground in front of her. Cautiously she walks to it, the object appearing to be a long, silver colored, sword-like weapon. As she reaches out to it a loud crack of thunder rings in her ears like some massive sonic boom, ripping her away from this world. As she is pulled from this dream, the phantom voice speaks one last time.

"I promise."

"Who are you!?" she shouts as her body jumps up from under the covers. A cold sweat covers her as she looks around the bedroom of her hotel suite at the Spring Crest Hotel in Balamb City, capital of the small island nation of Balamb.

"That same dream again...second time this week." she whispers to herself. She can still feel her heart racing from the mystical reverie.

A knock at the door to her room grabs her attention. The door opens slowly and a slightly overweight young man sticks his head in through the door.

"Hey...I heard you yell, are you OK Rin?"

"I'm fine Watts, thanks for checking." Watts hesitated a moment as if he wanted to say something more but nodded in silence then closed the door behind him. He'd been asleep on the couch when he'd heard the yell come from inside the room. He just hoped the stress she was under right now wasn't proving to be too much for her.

Rinoa glanced over at the nightstand and grabbed her watch. It showed the time as 6:07am followed by the date that read Tuesday, May 3rd 2217NE.

"Hyne, I need more rest." As she laid her head back down she briefly thought about the upcoming events. The next 48 hours were going to be busy, stressful and needed to be planned out carefully. She had to make sure the meeting with the Balamb Garden Headmaster would go down smoothly. The pressure was definitely on her. He had pulled some serious strings to arrange for her to meet the the Headmaster. So much was riding on SeeD's help and there was much more to be planned out.

I owe him big time for this.

A dark stormy overcast of clouds lined the sky above the Gaulg Mountains of Balamb, though there didn't seem to be any rain, only strong winds with thunder. Two young men stood facing each other separated by approximately five yards of ground. One, a blond man with his hair cut short and slicked back, was the larger of the two, and stood idly by watching his opponent, an overconfident grin etched across the blond male's face. He wore a long white trench coat over a dark blue vest and black pants with black leather gloves on his hands. The other man, whom was smaller in stature but not by too much, had longer chestnut brown hair that was parted down the middle and hung to sides and back of his head. Aware of his opponent's egotistical grin, he simply ignored the show of vanity and continued to warm up by rotating his arms and stretching out his neck. He was clad in a pair of black BDU pants and a white muscle shirt topped off with a black, zip up, leather jacket that had a fur collar. He too, wore black leather gloves.

In front of the smaller man stood his weapon, an exotic-looking implement of destruction extending straight up from the earth it was jammed into. One half of this weapon looked like a revolver style pistol, complete with a frame, external hammer, trigger and trigger guard, and a traditional cylindrical magazine. But the grip of the firearm was extended for two hands. And where its barrel should have been there was a blade instead. A long saber-like blade that attached to its gun-like hilt. Drawing attention to the broad side of the blade portion, an artistic rendition of a winged lion was etched into the metal. As if to be a finishing touch in order to add to the deadly appearance of this killing tool, a silver lion head hung attached by chain to the bottom of the pistol grip.

It was a true marvel to gaze at. It was a weapon of legend.

The gunblade.

The blond-haired man carried a gunblade of his own. But it was a different model and had its own unique appearance. It featured a hilt portion that looked more like an automatic style pistol with a shorter grip for one-handed use. And the blade of this weapon was straighter, and closer in similarity to that of a rapier. The blade was also obsidian in color, and winged out at the bottom.

After another moment the man snickered loud enough for his opponent to hear. "Are you done playing with yourself Squall? I'm in kind of a hurry to kick your ass and get back to Garden."

"We're only training Seifer, just getting some practice in before the upcoming exam." Squall hissed back in retort.

Seifer always knew just how to push Squall's buttons. He was a master at instigating a challenge, competition or fight between the two. And he grinned as he made his next comment.

"Yea, I'd be afraid to fight me too."

That was the last straw. Without another word said Squall ripped his gunblade out of the ground and charged toward his opponent. He whirled the gunblade around the top of him with two hands to gain momentum then swung to his opponents left side. Seifer, momentarily stunned by his opponents charge, had only enough time to step back with his left leg and block the attack. Countering, he pushed his attacker away with his sword then thrust at him with his own gunblade. Seifer kept driving forward with thrusting attacks, one after the other. The browned haired man was driven back but blocked each lunge Seifer made, swinging his gunblade left to right. He circled left to get better positioning and Seifer followed suit but slowed down, putting more space between them. They circled each other, each looking for an opening of attack. All around them, cracks of thunder continued to fill the air.

"I didn't know you had the balls to charge." Seifer commented

"Stop checking my nuts out." Squall countered.

Seifer lunged at the Squall, spinning his body 360 degrees for a stronger blow. Seifer's blade whizzed through the air towards his opponent's right side. Squall quickly stepped back with his left leg and raised his left arm bringing the blade to rest just on the back of his right shoulder to block the attack. Both blades met, causing an explosion of sparks in all directions. Squall immediately counter-attacked, bringing his gunblade down in a straight slice over the top of his head. Seifer blocked the attack but couldn't manage to raise his weapon for a counter-attack. Squall kept slashing down at his head, alternating between center and right sided attacks. Seifer blocked blow after blow, holding the grip in one hand and the back end of the blade in the other. Seifer saw an opening and stepped to the left as his opponent came down with another blow that missed Seifer all together. The force of his strike almost caused Squall to lose his balance and he had to stumble to regain his footing. This gave Seifer all the time he needed. Squall swung his gunblade behind him with one hand and again charged at Seifer who stood there with one hand held out flat. Suddenly the oxygen in front of his hand compressed into a single point and burst into a flaming ball of fire Seifer shot off at his opponent.

Cheating bastard!

It was the last thought that rushed into Squall's mind before the projectile made contact.

He managed to get his weapon in between himself and the flaming projectile just in time. The fire ball slammed into Squall's gunblade and exploded, sending him flying to the ground. As Squall quickly tried to recover his stance, Seifer charged in and slashed down at Squall's face, the blade cutting into flesh with surgical precision. A horizontal line slashed into Squall's face began from the right side of his forehead above the eye brow and ran down across his nose to his left cheek. As blood splattered on the ground, Seifer stood back with a victorious smirk etched across his face. He was proud of his handy work and it only served to bolster his already inflated ego. Stunned for a second from the sting of the strike, Squall looked at the blood on the ground then screamed with rage, launching himself towards Seifer. With one hand he swung his weapon up towards the face of Seifer, sparks shooting off the ground as the blade dragged up off the rocky surface. Seifer had dropped his guard and wasn't quick enough to bring his gunblade up to block. Squall's blade caught Seifer in the face giving him a duplicate cut of his own, only this cut had its angle reversed. The force of the attack sent Seifer spinning to the ground, his gunblade flying out of his hands.

Squall stood for a moment trying to catch his breath when he suddenly started to become light headed. The world seemed to be spinning and getting darker. The last thing he remembered before hitting the ground unconscious was what he thought sounded like a young woman's voice yelling the question, "Who are you!?"

With blood dripping down his face, Seifer stumbled to his feet and walked over to his opponent. He gave him one look then sheathed his weapon before signaling over to the pair of onlookers that had watched this duel.

"Help me get this asshole up." he said with a chuckle. "We should get him back to Garden before he wakes up and decides he wants a rematch."

NOTES

Well thats the first chapter rewritten and completed. I hope you enjoyed it. I should mention upfront that I intend for this to be a reimagining of Final Fantasy 8 just as much as a novelization. Obviously there's aspects to the story as a video game that wouldn't make any logical sense when applied in a real world setting. But I honestly think that this is what makes the novelization of a final fantasy game so much fun and a challenge to write; because everyone is gonna have their own take on dialog, original scenes and the mechanics of how things like magic and junctioning work. I'll do my best to explain everything thoroughly but please, leave reviews asking questions and making statements.

Also, I will try to bang out chapters on a somewhat regular basis but I am also working on an actual original novel of my own making that I intend on trying to publish if I can get it done. And if its any good. And hopefully it makes me lots of money...some money...any money...ugh, I just want more money.