Author's Notes: Well, not many, but just two brief things I feel bear stating. Feel free to post constructive criticism on anything, even if that constructive criticism is "I hate everything you did, never touch finger to keyboard again", but saying that "Zell/Squall is not gay!!!!!" will probably… just be ignored. It's fanfiction, after all. This story is inspired by Tenshi no Korin's "Eden" (also here, I think), and I haven't asked her thoughts on the matter (I plan to, but hell), so… go read that now, 'cause it's better than this one and will help allay my deep guilt complex. Also, let's not forget that I own none of these characters, and Square holds copyright to every damn one of them.

* * *

Bahamut waited.

Bahamut was good at waiting. Bahamut had waited for years since being captured by the scientists and bound into the flashing blue core, and even now that It was freed and junctioned, It saw no reason to stop waiting further. "There is another path to your destiny", It had prodded the young leather-clad man who was Its new host/avatar/other-self, and from that, he had started on his way to the bottom of the scientists' lair, and what waited there.

Bahamut was not afraid. For the King of Guardian Forces, fear was an impossibility – It perhaps felt a measure of fear for the monster at the bottom of the Deposit, and perhaps a measure more for what lay beyond it, but that measure was little indeed… and certainly not fear the way any human could understand it. In the end, Bahamut may not have proven to be immortal, and may not have proven to be omnipotent, but It was so close to both that no prospect could frighten It any more.

If the leather-clad man – SeeD, Bahamut drew from the memories It fed upon – defeated the monster at the bottom of the Deposit, Bahamut would have a chance to spread Its wings and strike with Its Mega Flare. Beyond the monster that lived beneath, It and Its host would strike on to new and stranger places. Further battles.

If the SeeD died, Bahamut would wait in the rotting flesh of his brain until a new seeker came to draw It forth again. What was a century more or less to a Guardian Force? Even the least of them – Bahamut chafed particularly at sharing a brain with Shiva, of all Forces – was above and beyond time in the way that the Ruby Dragons that waited below were above and beyond fire.

Bahamut didn't care. The sheer, monstrous apathy of the Guardian Force was perhaps what linked It to the SeeD that had junctioned It. Squall Leonhart had a way of not caring about the things around him that… impressed Bahamut. And because Bahamut was impressed by that uncaringness, It would send Squall Leonhart to his probable death.

"There is another path to your destiny."

To the Guardian Force, and perhaps only to the Guardian Force, it made sense.

* * *

Squall Leonhart let go of the vine and fell a foot or two to the dusty ground beneath. No one's been here for some time, his SeeD training picked up the moment he dropped. No footprints, even covered ones. Dust over everything. The air's heavy. But that 'no one' counts for monsters, too. For here, at least, we're safe.

"Safe." he called up to the others, conserving his words in a way that perhaps only one other former resident of Garden could match.

He didn't wait for the two other SeeDs (and one insouciant Galbadian student) he was taking with him before beginning to check around the place. He noted the fish outside as Irvine's heavy leather boots stirred up their own cloud of dust, and theorised as to three different ways the pressure could be locked. He looked over the computers as Quistis' fashionably comfortable shoes hit the metal of the ground, and hypothesised what might power the giant base besides the now-junctioned King of GF. He squatted by the hatch as Zell's sneakers touched down all-but-silently, and had already made two plans as to how to get down.

Dispassion can be a major asset.

"Selphie and Rinoa?" he asked Irvine, though he knew what he'd ordered them to do and that they'd do it.

Irvine confirmed his suspicions. "Rinoa's shelving and checking our equipment, and Selphie's gonna see if there's anything on Ragnarok she can fix."

Selphie had become Ragnarok's pilot, mechanic, and general keeper without any discussion whatsoever, and even with all the coaxing Rinoa was giving him to come out of his shell, Squall had responded to it with a mental "…whatever." Besides, she did a fairly good job for a huge piece of Estharian technology she'd probably never seen the like of in her life. Trabia Garden had good mechanical aptitude classes, evidently.

Quistis was giving the base the lookover Squall had given it the moment of touchdown, but with an almost fastidious attention to detail that could discover something Squall had missed. Irvine was giving a similar lookover to Quistis. And Zell, operating on an impulse Squall himself had been about to indulge, leapt at the computer terminal by the hatch in the floor.

Zell obviously knew to work with computers. He propped himself before it, legs crossed, and arrayed his battle-gloved hands on the keyboard in the positions of a touchtyper. "Hell yeah, baby!" he crowed at the top of his voice – Zell didn't seem to have a volume control. "Last guy set it to 'save password'. No authorisation needed!"

Last guy… how long ago was that? I mean, those computers are pretty damn far from modern – advanced for their time, maybe, but old.

Quistis finished examining a connector between a pair of windows, and turned around too fast for Irvine to look innocent. She shot him a look of tolerance, albeit tolerance with a limit. Irvine smiled and shrugged. Squall had a feeling that the cowboy sniper was rarely embarassed about this sort of thing, and even Quistis' most freezing Instructor glare couldn't faze him.

Before Squall could follow this line of thought to its conclusion – most likely "…whatever" – hydraulics began to operate with an unmistakable roar. Squall turned his head to stare at the now spinning centre pillar, joined by Quistis and Irvine after a moment.

"That you, Zell?" Squall asked.

"Hell yeah." Zell said again, this time sounding much the same as he had after knocking out a Training Centre T-Rexuar with a Gauntlet to the side of the head. "Whole thing's steam driven. Easier to operate than Garden freakin' Square. Gotta preserve the steam pressure or some crap, but we can get as far as we want."

"Monsters?"

"The hell should I know?" Zell shrugged. "Possible."

"Right. Quisty?"

Quistis nodded, and shut her eyes to better focus on the part of her brain that held the focused darkness of Diablos. Woken Sleeper, she adressed the monster Force. Dweller of the Lamp. Spread now your cloak over us, Dark Messenger, and let us go unseen, unheard, unnoticed. Let us pass like shadows in the darkness.

Only a flicker in the air marked Diablos' response, and if he didn't know better, Squall would never have guessed that the Dark Messenger had worked His power. "We shouldn't encounter anyone now." Quistis said, keeping her voice low – though even a shout would not break Diablos' dark field. That was probably a good thing, given that Zell was with them.

Squall moved, and the warped space of Diablos' cloak moved with him, to the top of the stairs down. Another SeeD, perhaps – a more logical, less intuitive one – might question the need to go down the stairs at all. Squall didn't even consider it.

"There is another path to your destiny."

Squall began to walk down the stairs.

* * *

"What I don't understand," Quistis muttered to the other three, as Zell punched in a series of codes and a gigantic grendel seemed to look straight at them, "is why there are so many monsters down here. What do they eat?"

"Each other?" posited Irvine, with a mordant chuckle.

After a pause, Quistis replied. "I could have done very well without that image today, thank you, Irvine."

"No problems, little lady."

Zell punched the air silently, a rarity for him, and pointed to the centre of the room. The elevator had unhooked itself from its locks, and was drawing the attention of an imp in the way that nothing else had or could. Behind the shroud of the Dark Messenger, the four of them stepped onto the platform. As it started to fall, the imp inquisitively leapt onto it, causing Quistis and Zell to start backwards and Irvine to grab for the trigger of his Exeter-class rifle. Squall, of course, was as still an iceberg as he ever was.

"Hey!" shouted Zell, and Quistis and Irvine both shot terrified glances at him, and then at the imp. Both had fought imps before and won, but neither wanted to be the target of a quick and accurate Firaga magic. Oblivious, Zell jumped from the elevator to stand before the huge bank of machinery that dominated this room. "Hey, Squall, let me handle this? People call me 'The Machine' when it comes to machinery!" he bragged, seeming not to notice the doubled use of 'machine' in his sentence.

Squall shrugged. "You've been doing good on the computers 'til now. Do it."

Like a child granted a new toy, Zell dived at the controls to the giant machine, looked over its multiple keyboards. Uh-oh. I don't recognise any of this. But I told Squall I could do it… hey, that looks like a Hensler pattern over there. I can do that.

He punched a few buttons, and the machine bleeped loudly at him in protest.

Okay, so that wasn't a Hensler pattern. Er… hey, maybe it's a reverse Hensler pattern!

He punched a few more buttons.

"Zell?" Squall said, helpfully. "There's steam coming out everywhere."

Hell with this!

"Argh!" Zell shouted, and slammed his right Ehrgeiz glove full force into the middle of the machine's front panel. And, proving that the universe has a sense of irony, the impact shook up something within the machine, and the giant door to the excavation site opened.

The four of them looked at the open door with a species of awe.

"So." said Squall, breaking the spell. "'Machine'… as in 'Fighting Machine'…"

"Screw you, Squall." Zell replied, without heat. "Worked, didn't it?"

Quistis took a step towards the open door, and then stepped backwards quickly, as if burnt. She turned to the other three, her hand on her whip stock. "Diablos…" she began, and then changed tack. "The shroud won't work past this door. Diablos said something about a power beneath that interferes with His own power."

The three others looked at her. Digested this information, and what it would mean.

And with his customary dispassion, Squall drew his Twin Lance gunblade from its sheath on his back, and turned in one swift motion that took the imp's head off. Perhaps the imp noticed its own death… and then again, perhaps not. Untroubled as always by the kill, Squall pulled a much abused rag from an inside pocket of his leather jacket and wiped the imp's blood from the blade. This needs to be replaced, he noted to himself. "Weapons out," he ordered the others. "Without Diablos' protection, we should be ready for battle at any time."

Irvine pulled the Exeter from its position on his back. Quistis snapped her Red Scorpion experimentally at the air. Zell, of course, did nothing. Getting ready for a battle is easy when your weapons are gloves. Squall finished cleaning the Twin Lance's double-blade, and put the cloth away.

"There is another path to your destiny."

It echoed inanely in his head, like that "Eyes on Me" song Rinoa hummed sometimes as the Ragnarok flew. Round and round and round. A tiny phrase, practically nonsense, all meaning almost obliterated by the growling roar of Bahamut's mind-voice, but Squall couldn't get his mind off it regardless. Another GF effect? he thought to himself. Memory loss first, obsession second? He clasped his free hand around the Griever necklace that hung around his neck – if anything he had counted as an obsession, it was the ancient black lion.

No. he shook his head immediately. I won't decide that everything that ever goes wrong with me is the fault of the damned GF. I won't be like the old Faculty and say that nothing the GF does can be wrong, but there's a middle ground.

All the same…

"There is another path to your destiny."

As it reverberated in his head, Squall stepped through the door.

* * *

Quistis held the door open for Zell and Squall to run through as Irvine fired two or three parting shots at the pursuing Tri-Face. After she pulled him through as well, she ducked back and slammed the door behind her, twisting the latch on it to hold it firm. She took two quick steps back, a Thundaga class magic rising to her fingertips to prepare for the seemingly inevitable slam of the Tri-Face's poisonous body against the flimsy wall of the hut they had found within the Deep Sea Deposit.

Instead, she heard the padding footsteps of the Tri-Face as it stepped nearer, the unmistakable sound – especially over her own held breath – of it sniffing the air, and then a whimper as it turned and ran.

"Gosh." Quistis sometimes wished her somewhat strict upbringing and then Instructor training allowed her to use stronger curses, but she had to admit that it was not in her. Seifer and Zell had the true talent to curse. "Something must keep them away from here."

"I think I know what." Irvine replied, the normal edge of happy, challenging insolence gone from his voice. He sounded like the little boy Quistis could only now remember having comforted when he fell from the rocks and scraped all the skin from his arms.

Quistis didn't want to turn around and see what the others were seeing, but she did.

The man at the desk was doubtless the foreman of the Deep Sea Deposit dig. He wore an important-looking lab coat and sat like the chair had been tailored specifically for him. Maybe it had – Battleship Island had been a profitable source of paramagic for some time. His desk had a thousand little 'I am important and belong here' touches on it: a paperweight made out of a star fragment, a dancing blue and yellow hologram, a very expensive looking nameplate… and Quistis had to admit to herself that she was only looking at these things because she didn't want to look at the man behind the desk.

His head had been sheared off neatly at the top of the neck and placed in his lap, his hands resting gently on the crown. Huge gashes opened in his torso, soaking his important looking lab coat with blood. Though he had doubtless been there for years, his body showed no signs of decomposition, and the blood that had been scooped from his neck and painted in huge, foreboding runes on the back wall didn't show any signs of turning brown. It was as red as when it had first leaked.

Quistis discovered that she could curse beyond "gosh", after all.

Squall, alone of all of them, managed to walk around the desk and bring a shaking, gloved hand close to the mutilated corpse. "These wounds in his torso… they're stab wounds. Whatever did this was a very, very big sword. And…" He raised the gloved hand to his forehead, and then pointed it outwards, and Quistis noted the slight radiation of a Scan spell. "…it stinks of magic. The sword was magical – really magical. That's probably why it hasn't – you know – rotted. The magic is keeping it whole. And probably keeping the monsters away. They don't like the smell of the magic."

"Can't say I blame 'em." Irvine muttered, facing the other wall.

Squall managed to reach past the corpse to touch something on the desk – a leather-bound book. It, too, looked important.

"You sure you should be doin' that, Squall?" Zell's voice was quavering.

"No." Squall replied, thinking There is another path to your destiny. He flipped open the book to the first page. "It's a diary. Dated… about fifty years ago. It's fairly average stuff. Talking about the digging, the mining, the crews, that sort of thing."

Squall continued to flip.

"Now he's talking about a dispute with the paramagic users… now it's been resolved… now he says they're getting closer to a breakthrough… now he's saying he's scared and excited at the same time, to see what they'll find… now…"

And then Squall gasped, and dropped the journal. Zell and Irvine turned back at the same moment, and Quistis took an anxious step forward, the Thundaga class magic rushing to her fingertips again. "What's wrong, Squall?" she asked.

Squall reached down with trembling hands and picked up the journal again. "He's written… deep enough to cut into the page. Just the same two words, over and over again."

"What two words?" asked Quistis, when Squall didn't seem to want to continue.

"Ultima Weapon." whispered Squall, not knowing why the words scared him. "Ultima Weapon, Ultima Weapon, Ultima Weapon."

They spent a moment in absolute silence, as Squall heard Bahamut's whisper again.

"There is another path to your destiny."

"Right." Zell broke it. "That's about enough, don't you guys reckon? I vote for getting the hell back to the Ragnarok."

Squall closed the journal. "No. We should press on."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Zell shouted. "We've got a guy cut to bits, things drawn on the wall in his blood, scary words carved into his goddamn journal, and you want to go further?"

"Not right now." Squall said. "We've had enough for today, like you said. I vote we call the Ragnarok, make camp here…"

"Here?" Zell screamed, every word Squall said seeming to drive him further into apoplexy, and the monsters howled outside the hut. "I'm not sleeping next to the dead guy!"

Silently, Quistis called a Holy magic to her hands, and sprayed the white globes of light to strike the corpse of the foreman. Where they struck, the body dissolved, even burning the blood off the wall behind him. Quistis liked to think that it constituted a proper burial – the magic was Holy, after all. "Better?" she asked Zell.

Zell shuddered, and then nodded. "Yeah. Better. Squall, though… you serious about going down?"

"Uh-huh." Squall replied. "You can stay here if you want, though."

"I'm not a chicken-wuss." Zell snapped. Not a denial.

Squall held up one of the radio communicators they carried with them to call the Ragnarok, and pressed the button on its side. Loud static immediately flowed through it. "Even without Adel's Tomb up there, these things aren't worth much at any distance. Down this low, we'll have to shout to make ourselves heard to Selphie and Rinoa. Down lower… no chance. We need someone to stay here as a relay between us and the Ragnarok. It might as well be you, Zell."

Zell weighed up the options. On one hand, a seemingly safe camp and a position of responsibility. On the other… Ultima Weapon. "All right. I'll stay."

Squall started to unroll their camping equipment. Estharian technology kept their tents and sleeping bags cunningly miniaturised – Squall alone could carry enough for all of them. "Good. Irvine, you're first watch. I'm second, Quisty's third, Zell's fourth."

Irvine nodded. "Me 'n Doomtrain could get to work on that gunblade of yours, if you want."

Squall paused, then tossed Irvine a dogeared Weapons Monthly. Following that, he drew the Twin Lance and laid it on the ground by the door. "Take care of it." he warned Irvine.

Irvine waved a hand, still shaking a little from the spectacle of the corpse. "Will do, Mister Leader."

And with that, Squall turned back to the camping equipment. Quistis, with her customary ability to make herself comfortable instantaneously in any environment, in any clothing, was already wrapped in her sleeping bag fully clothed and fast asleep. Zell, on the other hand, barely managed to restrain himself from bouncing and shadowboxing.

Squall pulled off his jacket and laid it over his sleeping bag, before wrapping himself in it and closing his eyes.

"There is another path to your destiny." his mind whispered, as he drifted to sleep.

* * *

"Booyaka!" a cheerful Selphie greeted the static of her radio controller. She had just found one of her favourite problems in Ragnarok's workings: a problem she could fix, and fix easily. It kept her busy, occupied, and challenged, and still ended up with a happy ending. Just like her favourite films. (Including "The Sorceress' Knight", starring Laguna Loire, but that didn't get into her top five because of its involvement with Seifer Almasy.)

"How you doin', little lady?" came Irvine's voice, sounding very small and far away.

"Irvy! How are you guys?"

"Asleep, except for me. I'm in a Shell so's not to wake 'em up. Almost the end of my watch, though." At his waist, his hands worked without his input, the communicator tucked between his cheek and his shoulder. He controlled his voice and his hearing, but he'd memorised the instructions in the Weapons Monthly, and now Doomtrain controlled his hands. "I'm just callin' to see how you are… you two, of course." It was easier to flirt when the second girl really was an afterthought. Rinoa was cute, but not Irvine's type. Perfect for Squall, though.

Selphie giggled. "We're fine. Whatcha planning to do next? Comin' up?"

"Nope." The cowboy's voice did sound very slight under the flood of static. "Just advising ya of the new plan. Squall and Quisty and me are goin' down to the bottom. We're leavin' Zell here, 'cause y'know, he's boring." Selphie giggled at that, too. "So you won't hear my charming tones praising your beauty for some time. If we need to tell you anything, we'll relay it through Zell."

"Okay!" Selphie bubbled. Then she sobered for a moment. "Take care of yourself, Irvy. Come back in one piece."

"Since you command it, m'lady, I won't get hurt. I'll tell Squall and Quisty not to either. Quisty'll be disappointed, though, she had her heart set on it." Behind the joking banter – and the everpresent static – Selphie heard something wonderful and gratifying. Irvine knew what she meant, and would come back to her whole."Tell Rinoa I called, and everything I said to you. Well, except that you're the prettiest girl on the ship, she'd get all envious."

Not that it was hard to make Selphie giggle, but Irvine was good at it. "You didn't say I was the prettiest girl on the ship."

"Then I will now. Sefie, you're the prettiest girl on Ragnarok, and possibly on the planet. Seeya."

"Seeya, Irvy." She pressed the button again, and dropped the radio communicator into her back pocket, Irvine's flattery ringing in her ears as she went to fix another of Ragnarok's little problems. All in all, the ship ran itself, presenting the chance, every so often, for Selphie to test her skills with little chance of failure.

She was beginning to think it only did it because it liked her.

* * *

Squall rubbed sleep from his eyes as he pulled himself out of his sleeping bag. Irvine turned to look at him, and then at his own watch – Leonhart had an enviable ability to regulate how long he slept, practically to the minute. Irvine envied that. "Here y'go, Mister Leader." Irvine whispered, hopefully loud enough to carry to Squall but not to wake Zell or Quisty. If all else failed, the large gunblade Irvine held above his head – looking like a sliver of ice running from a trigger, with Squall's Griever charm hanging from the stock – should carry the message. "One Lion Heart model gunblade, and I envy ya. This is craftsmanship." Irvine's Exeter had been made such at the FH junk shop, and was a pretty damn good gun, but the young sniper believed in hands-on work.

Squall favoured Irvine with a rare smile – why not, he's got a new gunblade – and gently took the Lion Heart from him. "You're right, Irvine." he said after a quick lookover. "This is quality work. Thanks."

"Thank Doomtrain." Irvine shrugged. "Mine were just the hands."

"Good hands, then." He ran a gloved finger down the blunt edge of the Lion Heart – the sharp edge would cut open his leather glove, his finger, and perhaps his bone – in a kind of ecstasy. Then he shook himself out of it enough to notice the cowboy. "You should get some sleep. When we go off, we'll want to be rested."

"Yeah." Irvine replied, slightly pleased that he'd managed to make something – even if it was mainly Doomtrain's work – that cracked the façade of Everyone's Favourite Iceberg Squall Leonhart. He turned away from the SeeD, still caressing the gunblade, and pulled open his sleeping bag. It was right next to Quistis', and though Irvine and Selphie were practically official, that didn't mean the sniper couldn't appreciate the chance to sleep next to a beautiful young woman. It was with a smile on his face that Irvine fell asleep.

New gunblade or no new gunblade, Squall wasn't smiling. His fingertips ran up and down the Lion Heart's glowing blade, but he barely noticed them. His thoughts were taken up with that simple, maddening refrain.

"There is another path to your destiny."

* * *

Zell had sat down for far too long on this watch.

Three hours each. Zell had tried sitting down and watching the door for the first half hour, to focus serenity into his mind in the way that let Squall and Irvine and Quistis sit their watches and not even notice how cripplingly boring it was to sit down for so long and not do anything. He'd made up no less than three mental games with himself and played them all for so long that they, too, had become cripplingly boring. At a loss for what to do next, he was shadowboxing with a phantom opponent and hoping that his watch would end soon.

But whenever he thought that, he realised that the moment his watch ended, Squall would be taking the other two down to the bottom of the Deposit, and there was a very good chance the three of them would die.

Don't think about it.

"Meteor strike," Zell muttered, and somersaulted head-over-heels to simulate raising his opponent into the air and slamming him into the ground, "followed by a punch rush," with which he turned and struck hard with the left Ehrgeiz glove, stopping a half-centimetre before Squall's nose.

"Um." Zell apologised, dropping the lethal weapon on the end of his left arm back to his belt.

"Morning, Zell." Squall said, with quiet eloquence.

Zell tried to think of something to simultaneously apologise to Squall for almost breaking his nose and persuade him to get back up to the Ragnarok and forget Ultima Weapon, and came up with "Um."

Squall caught the first, but evidently not the second. "Don't worry about it. I'd be worried if you didn't punch the air a lot, Zell. As long as you don't actually hit me, I'm fine."

Quistis and Irvine were stirring. Quistis may have been able to get to sleep far more easily than Squall, but she couldn't hope to equal him in quick waking – and Irvine had the worst of both worlds. Seemingly ignoring them, Squall walked a few steps into the corner and began checking over his new Lion Heart again.

"Squall…" Zell started, trying again.

Squall turned back, let the Lion Heart drop to his side, and stepped back to Zell. He pitched his voice low enough – hopefully – that neither Quistis or Irvine could hear him. "Zell, I'm just about scared out of my mind myself. But we have to fight the Sorceress sooner or later, and that scares me even more. This place was a spawning ground for paramagic even before Odine worked on Sorceress Adel and made paramagic available to the world. If there's even a chance that there's something down here that can help us fight Ultimecia…" He shrugged. "That's worth being scared, Zell."

I'm scared for you, Leonhart, that's what I'm trying to say. I could handle being scared for myself, but… "Right. Fine." Zell managed a laugh. It was difficult. "So… you're going down?" You can't wait five minutes? Ten? How about a year?

Squall didn't respond in words. Zell had heard the phrase that silence is more eloquent than speech, and never believed it for a moment, but Leonhart had showed him that it could be true. If a speaker spends years with never a wasted word, never a moment of unnecessary speech, never a breath that doesn't need to stir, then yes… their silence can be more eloquent than their speech.

Squall raised the Lion Heart to a ready position, and clicked the hammer. Almasy had done the same in Dollet – swung Hyperion in runic designs in the air, brought the point up to almost impale his chin, and cocked it once. The intention… the successful intention… was that everyone would know that what Seifer wanted, Seifer would get. Squall's gesture lacked the arrogance and style of Seifer's, but it had just as much cold certainty. Yes, Zell, I'm going down. And – hell – perhaps I'll die. You don't mind, do you?

I mind, Squall.

"All right." Dammit, dammit, why the hell can't I say these things once in a while? Leonhart may not say much, but he manages to say the things that matter; I gibber all the time and there's nothing I can say to stop Squall from trying to get himself killed…

"Zell."

"Yeah?" For one beautiful, terrible moment, Zell thought that Squall was going to say 'You're right, let's go back to Ragnarok'.

"I'll be fine."

No you won't.

Quistis and Irvine said their goodbyes, and Zell barely noticed. If they died – and if Squall died, Quisty and Irvy would lie next to him with their blood intermingling and forming some kind of fellowship beyond life – then Zell would miss them terribly. He'd be saddened for the Instructor who had taught him and the quick-witted woman who'd been his friend. He'd be saddened for the young man in the coat with the ready smile who'd given him back his past. But those sadnessess would be mild frosts compared to the winter of losing Squall Leonhart.

Oh, it was easy to think in ice metaphors when one thought about Squall.

And then they were leaving. They opened the door of the foreman's office, and filed out one at a time. Quistis waved to him in the door, Irvine tipped a salute from the brim of his hat, but only Squall stopped, turned, looked at him for a moment.

Zell had time to wonder why the Sorceress was so desperate to abuse Time, when Time was so eager to abuse itself. The moment where Squall's eyes met Zell's couldn't have lasted any longer than a second, or Irvine and Quisty would begin to wonder what the hell. Yet it stretched out, the all-too-common 'moment that lasts an eternity'. Zell had always winced when he read that passage in a book – "aw, hell, another moment that lasts an eternity" – but it fit, it was too damned perfect. In that moment… in that eternity… in that half of forever… Zell wanted to throw himself out the door after Squall. If you want to die, Leonhart, I'm dying with you, and four people get killed less often than three!

Zell stood still, matching his burning blues with the ice shards of the man in the doorway.

Squall raised one leather glove in farewell.

Zell raised an Ehrgeiz back. My glove's better than yours, Squall. See?

And then the door closed. The moment that had lasted an eternity had carried on too long, had outraced the present, and Zell only saw Squall waving his hand in farewell and then the closed door. His perceptions never actually touched the moment where Squall closed it. He probably preferred it that way.

He laughed, because it was better than screaming, and ran the Ehrgeiz through his hair. The fingers of the glove were huge and clumsy, because a fighting glove designed for dextrous fingers was a bad fighting glove. They left a ruin of his fashionably tall spikes. Zell didn't notice.

He said something weird before he went to sleep. Or maybe after he went to sleep. I don't even think Quisty or Irvine heard it. I don't think they noticed it if they did.

"There is another path to your destiny." Zell repeated it to himself.

Even as a reminder of Squall, it was far from comforting.

* * *

"Damn." Irvine cursed, spinning another dial on the console. "I do not know how to make this thing work."

"Zell made it look pretty simple." Quistis looked over at the screen.

"Yeah, but he's good at this." Irvine grumbled, pressing a button and receiving an angry beep for his efforts.

"You're sure we've got enough reserve steam pressure?" Quistis pressed on.

"Thing says it wants 10 RSP. We've got 14. I just don't know how to give it the stuff."

Squall had been leaning against a pillar, his arms crossed over his chest and the Lion Heart pointed at the ground. At this, however, he walked forwards, touched a dial Irvine would swear he'd never seen in his life, spun it forty degrees, and was rewarded by a hiss as steam flowed from conduit to conduit, chamber to chamber, and the screen displayed 'Excavation Resuming'.

"This is why he's Rank A and I haven't graduated yet." Irvine confessed to Quistis. She smiled. Squall didn't.

Then the world turned into noise. Irvine leapt. Quistis raised a hand to her ear and grimaced. Squall, being Squall, didn't make a move.

"Excavation resuming ! All except the leader must take shelter! Warning! Please take shelter!" unseen speakers screamed, designed to cut through any noise that could possibly fill the Deep Sea Deposit. They didn't change their volume for the parasite of silence that currently inhabited the bottom of the dig, and it showed. Irvine resumed his prior position, but Quistis didn't bother to shake the expression of distaste.

"Shelter?" she asked Squall, trying to make herself heard without actually raising her voice.

"No idea." Squall shrugged, thinking Ultima Weapon.

"Hey." Irvine pointed, seemingly past the unwinding ropes and newly steam-powered excavators to a lump of crystal against a shelf of rock. Squall looked where Irvine led, and when he saw what Irvine had noticed, he couldn't unsee it. A kind of… pulse. Throb. Shimmer of light.

"The rocks are… resonating?" he posited.

And then his head blared: There is another path to your destiny!

Squall fell backwards, clutched his temples from the pain of the voice, and so didn't see the monster-thing as it pulled itself out of the hole in the bottom of the Deep Sea Deposit. He only heard Irvine's shouted curse and the click-click of a loaded Exeter, a scream of "Oh sweet Hyne!" as Quistis' practiced Instructor façade did more than merely crack.

And then he looked up.

* * *

Zell was not comfortable.

Comfort was a concept almost completely foreign to Zell, and he liked it that way. Not for him the joy of knowing that everything was All Right. Zell would much rather have society as a whole crashing down around his ears, as long as it was exciting.

But then, there was uncomfortable like-a-low-grade-charge-of-electricity-under-your-skin, and Zell liked that. Then there was this other kind of uncomfortable, and Zell didn't like that.

The walls had started screaming that all except the leader must take shelter, which had forced Zell two feet into the air with a shout that would have made Ma Dincht slap him around the ear, seventeen year old or six, full SeeD or janitor. Then he'd muttered a string of wordless sounds to calm his nerves, sat crosslegged on the floor, picked dirt out of the crevices of the Ehrgeiz gloves and tried to ignore the shouting.

Then it had stopped. Somehow, that was worse.

Zell continued to sit, running stocky ungloved fingers through the creases of the gloves. Weapons Monthly, First Edition: The main feature of the weapon category 'fighting glove' is the raised blocks that cover the back of the hand, and particularly the knuckles. These blocks are designed to concentrate the force of the strike over a smaller area. The Ehrgeiz, as well as displaying almost perfectly designed force-concentrators, features a metallic coglike design around the knuckles. This design is both hard and sharp, and concentrates the strength of the punch into an almost irresistable force.

And, Zell thought, it makes your glove really, really hard to clean.

Pluck. Pluck. Pluck. Run naked fingers along the lines of the glove, inside the so-advanced design that turns your punches into wrecking balls. Wipe all the dirt and dried blood from those fingers with a rag. Polish the glove with the exact same rag, never mind that neither the glove nor the rag are quite clean yet. Drop the glove, scream at the top of your voice, grab your radio communicator that's already flipped to the frequency of your endangered buddies and hit the TRANSMIT button.

"Guys?" Zell said, about to go on to ask if they were OK and what the hell that speaker transmission had been, but stopped when he heard the noises from the other side.

A kind of explosion: Irvine's gun or Squall's gunblade, no doubt.

"Squall, watch out!" Quistis.

A sound like the air itself was burning, and behind it, a half-laughing, inhuman roar.

Irvine swearing at the top of his voice, and another sound of Exeter fire.

Quistis' feet – definitely Quistis, her tread was lighter and faster than Irvine's – hitting against the floor, and the sound of phoenix down boiling away to join with the metabolism of someone maybe more than half dead.

A sound like a swatch of air being torn open (Whatever did this was a very, very big sword, Squall had said) and Irvine cursing again.

Squall's voice, sounding ragged and howling… "FATED CIRCLE!"

"It is called a Limit Break," Zell's combat instructor had told him, "because it requires you to push past, or 'break', your limits. Typically, this is impossible. With the normal chemical balance in our brains and bodies, our limits are just that. However, there is one condition in which the body is flowing with adrenaline and the subconscious mind is running on triple-speed without the consciousness to hinder it. Coupled with the power of the Guardian Force, this allows us to smash through any barrier we set for ourselves. It comes only in times of crisis. This condition – and this is the reason we will not be teaching practical Limit Breaks, as it is far too dangerous – is when the body is near death."

Zell's ungloved fingers could almost cut into the radio transmitter.

Whatever monster they were fighting (Ultima Weapon, Ultima Weapon, Ultima Weapon) roared again, and was joined by the sound of Irvine's breathing, now harsh and shallow. Irvine fired Exeter three more times, and then the unmistakable sound of him breaking open the gun and taking a painfully long time to reload. The swish and crackling sound of a Draw… but this was louder, more frantic, than any Draw Zell had heard before.

Then Quistis screamed, a loud, desperate sound that was abruptly cut off.

Zell pulled the transmitter closer, pressed the piece into his ear so hard as to leave an indentation, and heard the sound of Squall's boots slamming against the ground in a dead charge. The scraping, sparking sound of him drawing the tip of his gunblade across a stone floor. Zell expected to hear Squall declare a Rough Divide any second, but was surprised.

"LION HEART!"

A sound like fingernails being dragged across the firmament of the universe, and then almost merciful silence, broken only by Irvine hitching shallow, halting breaths.

Zell flicked off the radio transmitter.

Hell with this. he thought to himself. Hell with this. I'm going down there. Another path to my destiny.

* * *

Space tore once more, and dumped from itself two creatures… a dark-haired, leather-clad, exhausted human, his ice-sliver blade dangling from an almost useless hand; and a hideous centaurish monster, bleeding discoloured blood from half a hundred slashes. Ultima Weapon, figure of fear, monster of the Deep Sea Deposit – dead. Squall Leonhart, fleshbag human, running wet under skin almost paper-frail – victorious.

Irvine hissed breaths that should have been gasps, beside the prostrate figure of the blonde Instructor, but he managed to tip his hat to Squall nonetheless. "Nice going, Mister Leader." his ravaged breath took form and word. "Way to take down that big badass. And here I thought we were all gonna die."

Like you did, he didn't say. Nonetheless, Squall pulled out the collar of his white shirt, and looked beneath at what had been his torso. Where once had been smooth, rich flesh, now was a shifting coating of burn scars, some broken and bleeding from the stress of the Lion Heart. They were healing. Slowly, they were healing. Best I don't show them to Zell, though. He'd go insane.

"I was dead, then?" Squall asked Irvine.

"Quisty took your pulse and then looked all depressed. I'm guessing you weren't beating a hundred a minute… could have been weak, I guess, but I didn't see your chest going up and down, and I don't see how anyone could've survived that."

Squall nodded. He still remembered looking down the blade of that overlarge sword, seeing the pillar of light rushing along it, trying to dart out of the way and being caught in the flaming brightness, everything dark… "Phoenix Downs don't work on the dead." he said. "They to give you a quick hit to bring you conscious. Adrenaline doesn't mean much to a corpse."

Irvine shrugged, and winced as the action rubbed his trenchcoat against one of the brutal gashes the creature had dealt him. Paramagic to repair their clothes was much easier, and much faster, than the variety that repaired their skins. It was almost routine to wave your hand over Squall's ruined jacket at the same time as you dropped the phoenix feathers onto his ruined skin. "Like I said, you could have been not quite dead. Looked pretty beyond-the-pale to me, though. If you want my opinion, it worked because you're one tough bastard."

Males didn't get praised often by Irvine. 'One tough bastard' could be the highest praise the cowboy would deal out. Squall failed to notice. "Whatever. How about Quistis?"

"Err… well, that's our problem, Mister Leader." Irvine seemed to be gaining strength by the minute – probably a Regen or Curaga doing its slow work under his skin. This, though, lacked that newfound confidence. He sounded like a SeeD underclassman brought before Headmaster Cid for repeated violations of the forbidden items list.

He edged aside, and showed Quistis' unmoving body to Squall. She was breathing – yes, so she lived, her chest rose and fell, strong and gradual – but that was all he could say. Her eyes were open, so she wasn't unconscious, and the blue gaze that had frozen Squall so often when he couldn't answer a question was fixed firmly on the ceiling. She seemed in every way alive, and paradoxically, that made her seem in every way dead.

"I Phoenix Downed her, and when that didn't work, I did a Life and then a Full-Life. I was getting a little desperate by then, so I dribbled some Elixir down her throat in case something Mister Weapon had done to her was keeping her down. First I got nothing, then I got de nada, and after that I got zilch."

He banters to keep himself sane – it's his touchstone. He's got his witticisms the way I've got my coldness. His "Mister Leader"s are my "…whatever"s. With that in mind, I won't kill him for joking about what happened to Quistis. "What do you think happened to her?" Squall asked, dropping to his knees by Quistis' side.

"Nothing. She did a Draw just before she fell down… you don't think it's related?"

Squall nodded at that, too. "I think it might…"

"I am Eden."

Irvine and Squall both jumped back. Quistis' expression hadn't moved an inch… still that blue gaze, that serene face. But her lips had let out those three mystifying words…

"I am That Which Is. I am the force that drives the universe. I am the Eternal Breath. For Me, the world rotates against itself. For Me, the cosmos halts. For Me, the maelstroms open and the black holes dance through the void. For Me. I am Eden."

"Er… we got that the first time, Quisty." Irvine managed. "Are you feeling all right?"

"I shall dance forever in the stars. Let all existence know what I am, and what homage they owe Me. I am not chained. I am not forced. I am Eden."

"Seems to be saying that a lot, doesn't she? Squall, what are you doing?"

Squall had knelt beside her again, and was coaxing one of her arms over his shoulders. At Irvine's question, he looked up. "I can guess what's happened. I've seen it before. She's drawn a powerful GF, and it's overwhelming her. Before a GF and a human can truly work in conjunction, they need to find common ground."

Memory pierced through the veils of that same common ground he'd told Irvine about.
Twelve-year-old Squall, heading to his very first GF Practical class in Balamb Garden, as excited as Squall ever was.

Going through the psychological tests, answering questions, having scans made of his brain.

The muttering examiners: "Maybe we could give him an Earth type…" "Definitely not, he's far closer to Holy, and we don't have any of those…" "I think we should go with Ice."

Twelve-year-old Squall, led to a metal sphere in a metal room.

A helpful fifth-year. "Now, Squall, you're going to junction your first GF. Her name is Shiva. I'm sure you've already been told everything about what could happen from your first GF-junction, but if you treat Shiva with respect, you'll be fine."

Twelve-year-old Squall, laying all ten fingers on the orb, and saying in a week, trembling, twelve-year-old voice: "Draw."

And a coldness.

They'd told him he'd been out for a week, muttering always about how cold it was. Dr. Kadowaki had turned the heat up as far as she dared in the infirmary, but it hadn't stopped Squall whispering how cold, how cold it was, how his skin felt to freeze…

And compared to some of the GFs they'd found on their travels (Alexander Leviathan Cerberus Tonberry) Shiva was nothing. More experience with a GF made the junction easier. But the more powerful the GF was…

"So she won't be in control of her body until she finds common ground with… Eden." The word sounded strange on his tongue. "That might not be for a while. I'd like to get her back to the Ragnarok, if you'll take her other side."

Irvine didn't need to be told twice. He darted around to the Instructor's other side, and pulled her other arm over his broad shoulders. They stood in unison, Quistis held between them, her head lolling like a doll's but her eyes frighteningly aware.

"I am Eden." she said again. "Eden. Eden. Eden. Keeper of Reality. Eden. Key to All Things. Eden. Eden."

Irvine looked at Squall over Quistis' limply hanging body. Squall shook his head. "Don't let it bother you. Just walk. Faster we go, faster we're back to the Ragnarok."

Easy for you to say, iceberg.

For a blessing, though, Quistis/Eden stayed silent for most of the walk. For a curse, she spoke at the statue and the empty-seeming draw point, and said: "I am Eden, and you shall soon die."

Irvine looked at Squall, who said "Ignore it" again… but his voice was snappish. It didn't sound like he was ignoring it.

And perhaps it was best that Irvine didn't. "Look!" he shouted, pointing with his free hand up the stairs… the stairs that two Iron Giants were currently treading a heavy path down. Squall swore, laid Quistis on the hard stone ground, and stepped forward to stand next to Irvine.

Irvine click-loaded the Exeter, Squall hammered the Lion Heart.

"We won't have Degenerator to deal with these two…" Irvine muttered, readying himself for the perfect shot.

"I know." Squall replied.

There is another path to my destiny.

* * *

Zell didn't run, much though he wanted to. He walked. He walked quickly, because Squall and Irvine and Quistis (but mainly Squall) might be in danger, but he walked, because they might not.

They're fine.

They're dead.

Coming back up, laughing about the battle.

Lying in a triangle of bodies, their blood running into one pool.

They've found and killed Ultima Weapon, whatever it is.

Ultima Weapon has made runes of their blood and laid their heads in their laps.

Fine.

Dead.

Fine.

Dead.

Fine.

Dead.

He shadowboxed as he walked, because if he was focusing on the invisible enemy he fought, he didn't have to hear the battle in his mind.

(fine)

(dead)

Punch rush.

(fine)

(dead)

Mach kick.

(fine)

(dead)

Booya.

Round and round the crumbling spiral staircase, looking at the excavation equipment. Cables everywhere. Maybe they could have got to the bottom faster by jumping on one of those cables and riding it down, but maybe they would have just fallen, or faced the choice of falling twenty stories or trying to drag all their equipment back up the cable. Now that all the monsters knew who they were.

Zell's musings were disturbed by the roar of Exeter, and then he ran.

Squall. Irvine. Bloodied. Two ruined Iron Giants in front of them, but now a bigger problem – huge, winged, red-scaled. Quistis behind them, unconscious or dead. And the Ruby Dragon was drawing its head back, about to breathe its deadly breath and turn them all to living torches in the darkness.

It's called a Limit Break. It requires you to push past, or 'break', your limits. It comes only in times of crisis.

"METEOR BARRET!"

Fist extended, flowing with energy, Zell's body slammed Ehrgeiz-first into a crack in the Ruby Dragon's scale. The dragon threw its head back, screamed its agony as Zell's fist drove further through the hard scale and into flesh. Steaming red blood flowed over red scales, dyeing them a deeper red, as the dragon's scream grew louder, and then thinner, and then the beast fell limp.

Zell pulled his fist free of the scales, made a half-hearted effort to rub the blood from his forearm, and turned to Squall and Irvine.

"What happened to Quistis?" he asked, with no leadup.

Squall seemed to appreciate that. "She's junctioned a powerful GF. They're establishing compatibility."

Zell nodded, and remembered not his first junction (he couldn't remember that, it was still in the realms of the GF), but his first encounter with Ifrit. Then again, that hadn't been too hard on him… it could, he supposed, be expressed in words.

Zell: I like to hit things.

Ifrit: Do you like to hit things hard?

Zell: Are you kidding? Hitting things hard is only, like, the best thing ever!

Ifrit: Cooool!

But he, like Squall, had seen more powerful GFs being junctioned by the inexperienced, and though Quistis was the most experienced junctioner Zell knew, he could feel the power baking off the Force within Quistis' mind.

Best not to think about it. You know what matters? She's alive. Irvy's alive. Squall's alive. All your doubts are gone. Rejoice, Zell, be happy.

"Need help with her?" Zell asked.

Squall smiled. It was a strange thing to see. "You can take Irvine's place. You're closer to my height anyway, and we won't jostle her any more."

"Bah. Mock me just because of my commanding stature."

And with his own smile, Zell took Quistis' other arm, and began to carry her back to Ragnarok.

There was another path to our destiny.

But there isn't any more.

* * *

"BOOYAKA!"

Irvine felt the sudden impact of sixty or so kilograms of speeding Selphie against his chest, but managed to keep both his feet and his cool. After a quick spin, he released her and gestured at Squall and Zell, carrying Quistis between them.

Selphie was about to express the opinion that this was a mega-bummer, but Squall and Zell managed to convey two feelings at the same time:

1) it wasn't such a mega-bummer as she thought it was, and

2) the mega-bummer that it was, was a mega-bummer that Squall and Zell had both understood. Repetition of the fact that it was, indeed, a mega-bummer, would not amuse and enlighten.

"Should I get her bed ready?" Selphie asked, quietly.

"I am Eden."

Squall nodded, ignoring Eden's contribution. "She'll be better after some rest. GF. Compatibility."

Selphie nodded, and ducked back into the Ragnarok. Squall and Zell followed, Quistis dangling limply between them.

Selphie was a fast worker, and always had been. By the time Squall and Zell had reached Quistis' quarters, the blonde Instructor's bed was perfectly made, and the Ragnarok's energetic mechanic was standing beside it, seeming to be a blur of motion even when she was standing still. Kinda like Zell, Squall mused.

"Er… Squall?" the blonde martial artist Squall had been thinking of started. "Why don'tcha… leave this to me?"

Why does he want to be the one? He isn't attracted to Quistis, is he?

Squall's eye passed over the doorway, and the elegant fall of black hair over blue fabric.

Oh.

Oh.

He passed Quistis gently into Zell's care, and walked towards the girl in the door.

"Hi." said Rinoa, a smile crossing those pale lips.

"Hi." replied Squall, smiling himself.

He had held her when they piloted Ragnarok back to terra firma, and he had held her after he cut her free of the Sorceress' Seal. They hadn't held each other since, but it had been in a… soft way. They had taken each other's shocks well, and were now in a process of gentle discovery. It was achingly sweet enough that it threatened to break Squall's heart even as it mended it.

Zell had finished tucking Quistis in, and now left the room extraordinarily quickly, a babble of explanation flowing from his lips. His excuse, from what Squall could make out, was that he'd be seeing how Irvine was doing and if Selphie was ready to pilot yet. Zell had a fierce sense of honour and propriety from his grandfather, though, and Squall knew why he was really leaving…

Rinoa smiled again as Zell left, and another piece of ice melted from Squall's heart.

"You were down there a long time." she half-asked.

I don't need to tell her that I died. She's fought alongside me… she probably came close to death once or twice herself. She was in Ultimecia's coma… no, I'll only tell her what she needs to know. No need to disturb her.

"There was another path to my destiny." he replied, as if that explained everything.

"Did you take it?" she asked him, not at all surprised by the seeming non sequitur.

He nodded. "I think I did."

* * *

Zell fell against the bulkhead, ran his hands through his spiked hair, and laughed, because – again – it was better than screaming.

Safe. Safe and warm. Back aboard the Ragnarok, and on to Ultimecia! Irvine and Selphie are giggling with each other, and Quistis will be fine in a day or so, and Rinoa's happy with Squall, and Squall's happy with Rinoa, and what does it matter if I think I care about him as much as I care about the girl in Balamb who loves me, and what does it matter if I think I care about him a little more…

Zell let out another stream of words that would bring on severe pain from Ma Dincht, if they hadn't made her pass out first.

"My tender ears, Zell." Irvine reprimanded him, from his position on a nearby bulkhead. "What's got you so worked up?"

Zell only thought the curses this time, and chuckled.

"The fact that we're still alive? It's kinda a shock. I keep expecting to see Hyne's heaven opening before me. Hell of a 'path to our destiny', wasn't it?"

"Yeah, but worth it. Once Quisty comes out of it, that GF should be enough to make Ultimecia weep all on its lonesome. And then we can dance, and sing, and work out whether or not we love Squall!"

Zell started. What?

Irvine laughed. "Your secret's safe with me, Zell. But try, in future, to be a little less obvious? And I'll see you on the bridge in three minutes. Selphie wants to teach you how to fly Ragnarok."

"Er… all right."

Laughing again, Irvine tipped his hat and turned back to the door that led to the elevator room. At the door, he turned. "Zell?"

"Yeah?"

For once, Irvine sounded uncommonly serious. "Piece of advice from the guy who's been in a lot more relationships than you. If you decide it's yes, then for Hyne's sake, don't try to make it no. Not even if you think he's happier as it is, or that it'll risk your friendship. You might hurt him that way, yes, but you'll definitely hurt yourself the other." Then he brightened. "And if it doesn't work out, you've always got Miss Pigtails from the library to fall back on. You might want to bring some earplugs to the bridge, 'cause Selphie isn't very patient with people who don't pick things up immediately. Have fun, Zell."

The door swished open, and with a flash of trenchcoat, Irvine exited stage right.

"Thanks, Irvy." Zell said to the door.

Irvine's horny cowboy persona, obviously, hid some depths. His advice, even despite the shock of him knowing, made Zell feel a lot better than he'd felt for some considerable time.

And Quisty'll wake up, and Ultimecia'll go down, and we can dance, and we can sing, and we can work out whether or not we love Squall.

'Cause there's another path to our destiny.

end