Title: Side Effects
Disclaimer: I don’t own Final Fantasy VIII or Harry Potter
Summary: After killing Voldemort, Harry had planned on taking a long overdue vacation. However, Harry is Fate’s favorite toy, and she has plans. Two hexes and an accidental portal later, Harry finds himself dropped in the middle of another reality where people fear magic, and a Sorceress is intent on taking over the world.
Pairings: eventual Squall/Harry; currently mild Squall/Rinoa
Warnings: Swearing, death, and eventual slash as the main pairing.
Author’s notes: I don’t like Rinoa, but I don’t like bashing either. I’m doing my best not to slip into it here, but if I slip, please let me know. Like always, if you spot something wrong, be it characterization, grammar, spelling, or demon spell checker mishaps, please let me know. If it’s characterization, please explain your reasoning, because we all see the characters differently, and it will help me more if you explain why you think I’m off.
Chapter specific note: This starts where the intermission left off.
Chapter Four
Hermione gently closed the door behind her, feeling guilty for lying to Ron but happy she had managed to keep Harry’s secret. She knew she wouldn’t be able to keep it for long, especially with Ron’s suspicious, curious nature, but she was going to try. So, resisting the urge to cast a locking charm that would only attract Ron’s attention, Hermione lay down on the bed and pulled the book out of her pocket, a fresh wave of guilt washing over her. Guilt for being angry at Harry, for lying to Ron about the journal, for the lies she was going to tell Ginny, for not getting back to the journal before now…
Hermione snorted—it was stupid to feel guilty for anything but lying to Ron—and brushed tears off her face. She had been crying off and on since Ron had come home yesterday. It hadn’t hit her until then that Harry was alive, alive and not coming home, and now it was like she was grieving for him all over again. She had once, just once, wished he hadn’t sent his goodbye gifts and letters, and let them keep believing he was dead, but the pain at the idea of Harry truly being dead had hit her like a ton of bricks, and she had banished the thought.
“It’s better this way,” Hermione said softly as she opened the book, looking for where she had left off. And it really was. She did feel better knowing Harry was alive somewhere, and even if she never could meet this Squall and give him a slightly altered version of the lecture she had prepared to give any girl Harry dated, Hermione felt a little better knowing there was someone out there who was actively trying to keep Harry out of trouble.
She traced her finger down the left page, scanning the words, stopping when she found the word werewolf. With one last guilty look at the door, Hermione snuggled back into the pillows and settled down for a good read.
I do know Ron and Hermione would have accepted something like this in public and chewed my arse out in private. That’s what they did when I showed up with the werewolf kid Lupin handed me that time. Maybe Irvine and Rinoa didn’t feel comfortable confronting Squall, but what they did seriously damaged his trust in them, and my trust in any of Squall’s…well, friends isn’t exactly the right word. Teammates, maybe. Of course, Rinoa’s not really a teammate, either. She’s his freaking employer. I am so tempted to give my own Hermione styled lecture on the ethics of flirting with one’s employees, but I think Squall might kick my arse for putting my nose where it doesn’t belong. Or maybe for beating him to it. I swear he’s developing a nervous twitch. Every time Rinoa gets a certain look on her face and looks at him, he automatically starts looking for all the possible exits. He’s not even being subtle about it anymore.
I’m wasting paper here. I haven’t even gotten to the jailbreak yet. Oh, the jailbreak was loads of fun.
Yes, that was meant to be sarcastic! Quit reading over my shoulder.
Anyway…
After we woke up for the second time, Squall dragged me out for breakfast, which I couldn’t eat much of because I still felt like I was going to puke, and then around town for supplies, that not only included granola bars (which I raided at first available opportunity), potions, remedies, and other stuff I had no idea how to use, but a new case, saline solution, and cleaner for my contacts. I could have hugged him for that until he told me I wouldn’t have time to clean them because Irvine and Rinoa, who had missed the train (I still don’t know how he knew that!), were going to be back soon with the car, and once they got back, we were immediately going to get his friends.
Translation from Squall speak: jailbreak time!
I didn’t think it was possible, but finding a way around the spells McGonagall put on Dumbledore’s old library was actually easier…
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was possibly the stupidest idea Harry had ever heard. It most definitely would never be approved by Hermione. If anything, it sounded like something he and Ron would come up with on the spur of the moment, while Hermione stood next to them telling them exactly how everything would go wrong. In Harry’s experience, this would normally be a good thing, because the plan would be adjusted according to the things she pointed out. There was only one problem.
Hermione didn’t exist in this reality.
“You have got to be joking,” Rinoa said, tossing her hair out of hair face, only to tuck it behind her ears when the hot breeze blew it back into her eyes seconds later. “You seriously want me and him,” she waved a hand at Harry, “to walk into the prison and simply ask to see them?”
“No, I want you to go in there and ask to visit someone you know who was arrested recently,” Squall said patiently. “You said it yourself; almost everyone in Timber is part of a resistance group. There has to be someone you know who’s been arrested in the past month. Irvine and I need the distraction of someone like you in the prison to distract the guards.”
“What do you mean someone like me?” Rinoa demanded.
Harry took a bite of his granola bar and sat on the hood of the stolen jeep to watch the two of them argue. They had been going at it for at least forty minutes already, rehashing the same points again and again, and Harry was beginning to think they weren’t going to stop anytime soon. He could understand the reasons behind the fight, though. Sort of. Well, he could admit if this was his reality and they were planning to break in to Azkaban, he and Squall would be arguing about the same things.
Having two alphas on one team was always a risky venture, and Harry was quickly learning Rinoa considered herself in charge. He was also learning that despite her faults, Rinoa was fairly good at spotting the flaws in Squall’s plans. Unfortunately, Rinoa could only spot the flaws, where as Hermione would instantly start shooting off ideas on how to fix things. Then Ron would apply his strategy genius to narrow their options, and Harry—who had taken Dumbledore’s ‘know your enemy lessons’ to heart—would throw in his own knowledge gleaned from studying old Order mission reports, meeting transcripts, files Kingsley and Tonks had smuggled out of the ministry and personal experience from fighting against Death Eaters and Voldemort; and the three of them would come up with a workable plan. Fortunately, Harry accepted he wasn’t considered a leader in any way here and was missing the two people he worked best with; otherwise this argument would be even more ridiculous than it already was.
“Rinoa, you lead a known resistance group in Timber. You just tried to kidnap the president of Galbadia. They probably have a file on you bigger than that rock,” Squall replied, pointing at a nearby boulder half buried in sand. “They simply don’t have anything that would hold up under a minimum of scrutiny, or you would have gotten arrested months ago. But if you walk in there, every guard and camera you go by is going to be focused on you. If we’re lucky, the guards monitoring the cameras will be distracted enough to miss me and Irvine.”
Not that the argument wasn’t already stupid. Even though he conceded they didn’t have time or the information to come up with a better plan, Harry could not understand why they hadn’t done this back at the hotel, instead of in the middle of the freaking desert, in sight of the prison they were going to break into. He was sure one of the reasons for it had to do with the uncomfortable silence all four of them had experienced after Rinoa’s awkward apology, but in Harry’s opinion, a good leader would have put aside his or her feelings and plowed on through with voicing their objections—he had done it often enough when the stress had caused problems with him, Ron, and Hermione. But where the three of them had been friends for almost seven years and always had that to fall back on to help get through the rough spots, it was obvious even to Harry, Rinoa and Squall didn’t have anything like that to fall back on. Rinoa had a crush, and Squall was somehow in Rinoa’s employ, but nothing substantial.
“You’re SeeDs, mercenaries,” Rinoa countered, and Harry almost choked. Well, that explained…a lot. “You’re trained to deal with things like this! I don’t see why I have to go in there and play bait!”
“Exactly, we’re mercenaries, not gods. Irvine and I need a distraction. We can’t wiggle our fingers and get the others out.”
“Why can’t he wiggle his fingers and get them out?” Rinoa demanded angrily, pointing at Harry. Squall made a frustrated sound and ran a hand over his face, before explaining for the fifth time why Harry wasn’t able to get the others out.
“You plan on eating all of those? The guys are going to be hungry too.” Irvine said quietly so as not to attract Squall or Rinoa’s attention, as he sat down next to Harry. Harry shot Irvine a look and scooted over, determined to keep the chocolate chip granola bar far away from the evil chocolate defiler.
“Squall got four boxes; that means forty bars. I don’t think they’ll go hungry if I eat two,” Harry whispered, shoving the wrapper back into the bag he had been ordered to carry since he was the only one unarmed. “And I was still kind of nauseous when Squall and I got breakfast,” he added, waving the bar in Squall’s direction. He took a large bite and turned his attention back to the argument, easily ignoring the curious, gossipy look Irvine sent him. After all, it wasn’t everyday you saw what should have been a screaming match not become one, simply because one of the people involved refused to rise to the bait. Squall, Harry decided as he watched the man blandly repeat what he had said the first four times, had the patience of a saint.
Irvine checked his watch, his expression still somewhat curious, but worried as well. “If they don’t stop soon, Selphie’s going to organize a breakout before we get there,” he said, pushing the sleeve of his duster back down. “The little firecracker isn’t big on patience.”
“At least we have a good reason to kick you guys out of the car before we get there,” Harry said, looking at the jail behind Squall. They were a few miles away, but he could make out the three separate buildings and tiny blobs walking around outside, and if he could see them, then guards had to have broken out the binoculars to spy on them. “They must have noticed us sitting out here by now.”
“I think that’s why Squall hasn’t put an end to it yet,” Irvine muttered quietly. Harry nodded in agreement as Rinoa and Squall turned to face them, and Rinoa started walking toward them, her hand on her hips. “Have you two figured out what we’re doing yet?” Irvine asked, and he and Harry both started to stand in the hopes they would be leaving soon.
“Not yet,” Rinoa said, looking at Harry, a suspicious frown on her face. “Squall says you can’t do it, but if you’re a sorceress-”
“Sorcerer,” Harry and Squall corrected in unison, and Irvine bit his lip to stop a snicker from escaping.
“-why can’t you magic them out,” Rinoa continued, pausing long enough to pout at Squall for the interruption. “We don’t know for sure if Edea’s looking for you, so it doesn’t make sense to risk our lives if you can do it.”
Harry sat back down on the hood with a thump. With how strange his magic was acting, he honestly hadn’t thought of using it. He looked at the prison and began chewing on his lower lip as he thought about how he would go about getting them out in his reality. Sure, the same magical laws didn’t apply, but the concepts were what Harry was familiar working with. He had never met them before, so he would need to know exactly where they were, where their weapons were, and how many people would be near them at any given time. Not for the first time, Harry found himself wishing it was possible to safely apparate without a clear destination or person in mind. He had done that only once before, and he had almost killed himself. Of course, he could use a portkey; but those also required exact locations…
But all of this was just theory, Harry realized, feeling his magic shifting under his skin at the mere thought of being used. Even if he did have everything he needed, his magic wasn’t stable enough to try something big like that. It was calmer and didn’t seem to mind being held back as much as it had, but it still didn’t want to listen to him.
“Well? Can you?” Rinoa asked, stomping her foot impatiently.
Harry swung his head around to look her, and shook his head. “Even back home, I wouldn’t be able to pull it off without more information. I would need a safe place to apparate to, their location, someone to tell me where their weapons are stored, where the guards I need to avoid are going to be, things like that. The most I might be able to do right now would be to cast ‘notice me not’ spells on us and hope they work right.”
“What are ‘notice me not’ spells?” Rinoa asked, latching on to the one thing that sounded useful.
“Exactly what they sound like, spells that prevent people from noticing things,” Harry explained, glancing at Squall. “It’s like the spells Edea used in that city-”
“Deling,” Squall interjected.
“-on the soldiers guarding the manholes. You take someone who looks like they belong and cast the spell on them, and other people won’t notice them at all,” Harry explained. He sucked his lower lip between his teeth and worried at it again. “I don’t want to risk casting an illusion incase I accidentally transfigure whoever I’m casting it on, so unless I pour a lot of magic into ‘notice not’ charms, they won’t have the same effect, but they would normally make us harder to spot; maybe make the guards imagine there are other guards with us or that we don’t look quite like our selves. But if I make them too powerful, then I could accidentally turn us invisible,” Harry added quickly when Rinoa started to open her mouth to say something.
“But a regular one would help?” she asked eagerly, waving off the warning.
“It might,” Harry said warily. Rinoa scowled cutely at him, and he scowled back. “Magic is not a fix all, Rinoa. Anyone can see through a ‘notice not’ spell or even an illusion if they’re suspicious enough or if they know what to look for.”
“That’s how you spotted the soldier in Deling, isn’t it?” Squall asked, and Harry grinned at him, relieved someone understood.
“I just looked for little things that didn’t make sense, and the smell of tar and a man dressed in a work jumpsuit in the middle of the night didn’t fit. The way he kept reaching for his waist where he would carry a sword or a gun helped clue me in to the illusion, and then I noticed everyone’s eyes seemed to pass over him, which told me about the ‘notice not’ spell,” Harry said, and he took a bite of his granola bar. Squall sent him a disapproving look, and Harry shrugged unapologetically as he swallowed. “Another thing, in my reality magic and technology don’t mix. So even if the spell helps you avoid the guards in the halls, whoever’s watching the cameras still might spot you. And if they see past the spell and radio their friends with your description, then the spell will stop working because they’re looking for you.”
“But you don’t know if it will work that way here, the guards still might ignore them,” Rinoa pointed out, and Harry slid off the hood of the car, glaring daggers at the girl. Magic, just like any other talent or tool, had limitations, and he knew better than anyone here what its limitations were. Rinoa’s casual dismissal of those limitations was beginning to irk him.
“We can test this later, but for day we’re going with what he knows,” Squall said, stepping in between them to stop the argument before it began. Rinoa and Harry turned identical glares on him, but when Irvine let out a muffled snicker, Harry realized what he was doing and turned his glare on Irvine.
“It’s not funny,” Harry snapped, crossing his arms over his chest.
“It is from my perspective,” Irvine replied, grinning. “I bet you any amount of money Selphie will think it’s hilarious, too. And cute.” Harry frowned at him, as did Rinoa, and Irvine out right laughed at them this time. “She’s definitely going to think this,” he motioned his shotgun at Harry and Rinoa’s almost identical frowns, then at Squall, “is cute.”
What the…?
Harry blinked at Irvine, before turning to Squall in the hopes he would explain, but Squall looked as mystified as he felt. Rinoa, however, was scowling. Harry figured she knew what Irvine was implying, but since he trusted her about as far as he could throw Hogwarts, he wasn’t about to ask. Shrugging off his curiosity, Harry popped the last of the granola bar in his mouth.
“Harry, I bought those for the others,” Squall said, fixing him with a glare that was oddly reminiscent of Petunia Dursley, and Harry tried not to squirm guiltily. “You had breakfast; they haven’t eaten since dinner last night.”
“One bite of sausage does not qualify as breakfast,” Harry said, lifting his head to look Squall in the eye. He was not going to let anyone make him feel like a first year called into the Headmaster’s office because he was eating—he had quit letting Petunia’s ‘Harry is not allowed to eat his fill’ attitude affect him when he was five, and he wasn’t about to let Squall, however unintentionally, make him feel like that again. “And the dog kidnapped my doggie bag,” he said grumpily, pointing at the dog sticking her head out of the rolled down window in the back seat. Rinoa let out an indignant huff, crossing her arms and glaring before stalking over to the jeep to pet the dog, talking to her in a soft murmur, telling her to ignore the dog hater.
“And you couldn’t rescue it from Angelo?” Squall asked, and even though his expression didn’t change, he sounded amused.
“After it had been drooled on…”
Harry’s voice trailed off, and he started looking around for…he wasn’t quite sure what. There was a floating feeling in the air that reminded him of the rush of using Hermione’s time turner. But he wasn’t using one, and the world wasn’t rushing by, and the sun hadn’t moved. Obviously not a time turner. He didn’t even know if time turners existed here. “What the hell?” he whispered, looking around the desert in confusion.
“Squall!”
Harry spun around, and saw Rinoa was holding Squall up. There was a groan to his right, and Harry darted to Irvine’s side, just in time to prevent the man from banging his head on the hood of the jeep. He could hear Rinoa struggling with Squall’s weight, but between Irvine’s weight, the shotgun that somehow ended up pointed at his stomach, and getting tangled in Irvine’s duster, he had enough problems.
“What is going on?” Harry asked after finally managing to get Irvine on the ground. Even though the shotgun wasn’t pointed at him anymore, he carefully unwrapped Irvine’s hand from the gun and placed it to the side. The last thing he needed was to get shot because the cowboy had a twitchy trigger finger. He looked from Squall, whose head was lying in Rinoa’s lap, to Irvine, trying to figure out what was happening, and when Rinoa didn’t say anything, Harry’s impatience got the better of him.
“Look, I don’t like you and you don’t like me,” Harry said angrily, all set to let loose his frustrations at her. But then Rinoa looked up from Squall’s face, and he saw her worried expression. Biting the inside of his cheek, he quickly shifted gears and went for the reason route. “But I’m only going to be a liability if you don’t talk to me. If we don’t get along, that,” he waved a hand at the jail, “is going to go to hell real fast.”
“You’re right, I don’t like you, and I don’t trust you,” Rinoa admitted quietly, looking him in the eye. “But since Squall’s seems determined to use you, I suppose I don’t have a choice.”
Something clenched in Harry’s stomach at the word ‘use’, and for the first time that day, Carbuncle stirred to life in his mind. Several images of Squall talking with other people flashed across the inside of his eyelids, and it took a moment before Harry realized what the GF was trying to tell him: Squall kept his word, but he could and would lie. Harry nodded, letting Rinoa think it was meant for her, and he sent Carbuncle a silent ‘thank you’ for the reassurance, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to pull Squall aside at the first opportunity and find out what he had told Rinoa. Carbuncle responded with a purr-chirp of agreement, and Harry turned his attention back to Rinoa.
“…call it the ‘dream world’,” Rinoa said, making air quotes before dropping her hands to cradle Squall’s head once more. “I don’t really understand it, but Zell said it had happened before on their way to Timber, and it happened on our way to Galbadia Garden. Selphie said they live the lives of some people called Laguna, Ward, and Kiros for a short time, and then they get sent back.”
“How long does it last?” Harry asked, looking at the prison. It was almost eleven already; if it took too long for them to wake up and the guards got too curious…
“Last time, they woke up in minutes, but Selphie said to her it felt like three or four hours,” Rinoa explained, one hand absently brushing the hair out of Squall’s face.
Harry watched her for a moment, and wondered how Squall would react to waking up with his head in her lap. Judging from the warning about not taking the possible relationship lie seriously he had received in Deling, Harry had the feeling Squall’s reaction would be something to see. He looked down at the ground to hide his smirk. Oh yeah, ten minutes from now, life was going to be interesting.
But until then, he needed to learn more about this world.
“Can you tell me about para-magic? Just in case we get in trouble and I need to do something in the prison, I want to be able to use a spell people are familiar with,” Harry explained when Rinoa’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
Rinoa stared at him a minute, trying to find something in him—Harry wasn’t sure what, maybe proof he wasn’t going to run away from this even though it wasn’t his fight or ditch her at the first opportunity—before smiling brightly. “Okay. There are two big groups of spells. The ones we might find the most useful are the defensive spells, like the status and support…”
~**~**~**~**~
Not for the first time, Squall wished he could tell who was inhabiting the bodies of Laguna’s friends. This time Ward wasn’t around, but Kiros was, and that meant someone was in him. Selphie had been Kiros on the other two journeys, but Selphie hadn’t been with him when it struck this time, and Squall knew this ‘dream world’ was tied to him somehow. That left Rinoa, Irvine, or Harry. If these dreams were also tied to SeeD like Zell suggested, that left Irvine. Which meant Harry and Rinoa were alone.
Harry and Rinoa alone in the desert and in sight of D-District prison was not a good thing. Whoever or whatever was doing this had a horrible sense of timing. From the safety of Laguna’s mind, Squall wished he could kick something.
Laguna’s left leg suddenly kicked out at the caterchipiller, and he stumbled right as he pulled the trigger of his machine gun. Somehow managing not to shoot himself, Laguna tumbled to the ground, taking out a bite bug as he went. “Bad fairy!” Laguna said, rolling away to avoid a spray of webbing from the caterchipiller. He jumped to his feet and fired a quick spray of bullets into the monster’s side, giving Kiros the chance to sneak up on it. “It’s not nice to do that to me during a fight.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t have done that on your own?” Kiros asked, only a hint of worry in his voice as he used his blades to slice through the caterchipiller’s thick rolls of fat. Using a natural speed and grace Squall envied, Kiros leapt back, dodging the dying caterchipiller’s attempt to bite his face. “You have been known to trip over your own feet at the worst moments.”
Feeling Laguna’s face muscles move, Squall was thankful no one knew he was here. Laguna was twenty seven years old, he was a trained soldier, he…
He had just blown a raspberry at Kiros.
~**~**~**~**~
“This is bo-o-o-oring,” Selphie whined, stretching her legs out on the floor. She wanted to kick them against the floor and have a right and proper tantrum, but she was a SeeD now, and SeeDs were supposed to be responsible. That, and it would attract the guards quicker than rotten meat attracted mesmerizes.
“Zell is the only one of us who still has a weapon,” Quistis said, nodding her head at the sleeping man’s gloves. “It would be foolish for us to-”
“-attempt a jailbreak when we’re used to reacting with weapons instead of without,” Selphie finished with a roll of her eyes. “You’ve said that three times now, Quisty.”
“Then why do you keep saying you’re bored? I can’t pull our weapons out of thin air, you know,” Quistis said sharply, smacking her open palm on the metal floor. Selphie’s jaw dropped open in shock, and Quistis looked away, a faint blush on her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to snap, I…”
“Want out of here?” Selphie asked as she repeatedly poked Zell in the side, smiling when Quistis nodded. Selphie looked back down at Zell and pouted, giving him an extra sharp poke in his stomach. The sooner he woke up, the sooner they could leave, but Zell just rolled over, mumbling something about mops. If it wasn’t for Zell’s mumbles about mops and brooms and cleaners, Selphie would have said he was in the dream world, but she couldn’t imagine a dashing soldier like Sir Laguna ever using a mop. Come to think of it, she couldn’t imagine Kiros or Ward using one either.
“Selphie, the guards gave us hot dogs,” Quistis said, using her foot to nudge the mostly likely drugged food even further away. No use tempting fate if Zell woke up and saw them before they could warn him. “If the smell of those didn’t wake him up, nothing will.”
“If you say so.” Selphie plopped down on the floor, and stared up at the ceiling. She blushed when her stomach rumbled. “You think Squall will bring food if he comes?”
“Yes,” Quistis said firmly, nodding decisively, and Selphie could tell there was no doubt in her mind Squall was coming for them. Selphie sighed. She wished she had that kind of faith. Rinoa, sure. Irvine, maybe. But Squall didn’t seem to care about any of them. He did care about the mission though, and they were needed for the mission, so maybe that was why Quistis was sure he was coming.
“Quistis?”
“Yes, Selphie?”
“You think he’ll bring beef and peppers?” Selphie asked, not expecting an answer; she was just talking to fill the silence, and they had already talked about Zell’s shorts, where their weapons might be, Angelo, and the silver light that had lit up the archway at the end of the fight against Edea. “I don’t know if he’d have room for that in his pants, but I really want some beef and peppers. And some fried rice.”
Quistis stared at her a moment, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly, before the first giggle escaped and then another. It wasn’t long before Quistis was leaning against the wall, laughing, and Selphie was left staring at her.
What was so funny about her craving beef and peppers?
~**~**~**~**~
There are many words to describe Rinoa Heartilly’s reaction to Irvine handing her the keys to the jeep, and they all could be replaced with one word: terrified.
Squall and Irvine had tried talking her into driving the jeep—she was the obvious choice since she had some experience while Harry had absolutely none—but Rinoa had adamantly refused. After hearing why she hated driving because of how her mother had died, Harry had shocked everyone by taking her side in the argument and demanding a quick lesson from Squall. It had taken Squall a few seconds to make the connection between what Harry had told him about his parents’ deaths and Rinoa’s fear, but when he did, Harry’s sudden choice made a bit more sense, and he reluctantly agreed. He didn’t like it, and he knew Harry would probably hit a few guards when they reached the prison, but Rinoa was in tears by that point; Harry had been glaring at both him and Irvine, his magic almost visible as it swirled around him impatiently; Irvine had stood there in shock at Harry’s sudden support of Rinoa; and Squall just wanted to get everyone out and back to Garden before sundown. Ten minutes spent teaching Harry how not to wreck was a small price to pay if it meant Squall could sleep in his own bed that night. The fact that it gave him a chance to ask Harry a few questions was a nice bonus.
Which was how twenty minutes after they woke up from the dream world, Squall and Irvine found themselves watching Harry drive the jeep towards the prison, the their skin still tingling from the spells. Harry wouldn’t be able to pass a driving test anytime soon, but both Rinoa and Harry had informed him they were planning on taking advantage of the situation by making a big deal out of Squall and Irvine abandoning them when neither of them knew how to drive. Squall could only hope Rinoa remembered to play the father card just in case Seifer was there. Seifer was an ass, but he wasn’t a complete idiot—he wouldn’t take the risk of upsetting the soldiers under his command by hurting the daughter of one of Galbadia’s generals, especially if Rinoa made a big deal out of it.
Once the jeep reached the gates and most of the guards were focusing on Rinoa, Squall started jogging towards entry point they had chosen, Irvine following close behind him.
“Just so you know, I still don’t like this,” Irvine said softly as they finally stopped running. They had reached the fence surrounding the prison, and his voice was mostly hidden by the echoes of Rinoa’s crying about her bodyguards leaving her, Angelo’s barking, and Harry and the guard’s halfhearted attempts to calm them both down. They climbed over the fence, using Irvine’s duster to cover the barbed wire, and lightly landed on the dumpsters on the other side. After a brief struggle to get his coat back, Irvine added, “They don’t get along, Seifer knows she’s with us, and you two have a history of fighting. He’s going to use her to get to you.”
Squall shot a look at Irvine for the ‘history of fighting’ bit, but quickly decided Selphie or Quistis could have told him and brushed it aside. “I’m counting on him using her,” he muttered, crouching down in the shadows by the dumpsters, his eyes scanning the small yard for cameras. Finding two hanging off the side of the closest tall, twisted, metal tower, he silently counted the seconds as they turned, their lenses focused on the ground below.
“They have to go through the checkpoint where the weapons are stored, and Harry put some spells on the bag, too. He’s going to grab the weapons while Rinoa’s crying fit distracts the guards, and if he’s here, it’ll appeal to Seifer’s twisted sense of humor to lock them up with Quistis and the others,” Squall said, turning to give Irvine the same ‘You’re beginning to piss me off’ glare he used most often on Seifer. “Now, shut up and follow me.”
Irvine looked angry and just a touch confused, but Squall ignored it and grabbed his duster, forcing Irvine to follow as he dashed across to the shadows under one of the cameras. Irvine opened his mouth to ask why he had waited on telling him the plan had changed, but Squall silently pointed at the camera above them, and Irvine knew. Squall almost see the gears spinning in Irvine’s mind as he figured out Squall had purposely put off telling him to avoid the risk of him telling Rinoa she was more than simple camera bait, and to avoid the very questions about the plan change Irvine wanted to ask.
It was a simple change, but when Rinoa’s fear of driving was revealed, Squall had known there were so many ways to take advantage of that. A quick conversation during Harry’s impromptu driving lessons about the spells he had mentioned before, and the plan had taken shape. Not only would Rinoa and Harry play distraction so Squall and Irvine could get in, but the big production Seifer was bound to make out of capturing Rinoa would give them time to take out as many guards as possible, making it easier for everyone to escape once Squall and Irvine met up with them. Harry wouldn’t be much help since his magic was a little too eager to help, and Harry had barely been able to reel it back in after all the spells, but Squall had a vague feeling that, if pushed, Harry would risk it, leaving Squall with an edge Seifer didn’t know they had.
And if the look Irvine was shooting his way, the one that clearly said ‘You’re a paranoid bastard,’ was anything to go by, he had finally figured it out. Squall smirked at him, motioned for him to stay put, and ran towards the maintenance door, two small, thin metal strips already in his hand. There were two more cameras overlooking the ground by this door and there should be at least two guards on the other side, but it was the only entrance that didn’t require a key card of some sort incase the electrical system shorted out. He and Irvine were lucky Rinoa—who he could still hear making a racket by the front gates—had attracted the attention of almost every guard outside, including the ones who should have been guarding this door.
Squall shoved the metal strips into the gap between the door and the doorframe, twisting them to force the old lock to slide back. Zell was going to raise hell about his lock pick set being ruined, but the cost of replacing it would be worth getting everyone out in one piece. There was a quiet click of the bolt sliding back into the door, and Squall turned back to look at Irvine, jerking his head towards the door. Irvine glanced up at the cameras before running towards him, but Squall didn’t wait. Rinoa and Angelo were finally quiet. With the show over, the guards would be back at any moment.
Calling a Sleep spell to his hand, he yanked the door open, staying behind it and using it as a shield. From the corner of his eye, he saw Irvine crouching down and rolling behind the same crate Squall had used to hide from the cameras on his run to the door, in case the guards came out firing guns and spells, but…
Nothing happened.
Squall looked back at Irvine, who was peeking around the crate, and they frowned at each other. Squall raised his eyebrow, and Irvine shook his head. No guards. Not quite believing him, Squall risked sticking his head around the door. No one was there. In fact, there was what looked like an inch of dust on the floor. Squall couldn’t believe it. He knew a number of Galbadian soldiers were sloppy and cocky, but this could only be described as stupid. It was like they were asking for trouble to come strolling in if the assigned guards couldn’t be bothered to stick around the most vulnerable part of the prison.
Frowning, Squall pocketed the ruined metal strips he had used to open the door, and warily slipped inside. His luck was not this good. Something was wrong here; he just needed to figure out what.
“Don’t jinx our good luck,” Irvine hissed as he ran in and quietly shut the door, knocking up clouds of dust.
Squall sneezed, barely pinching his nose closed in time. He glared at Irvine, then down at the sparkling dust that wasn’t really dust. Seifer was not only here, but he had paid more attention in class than Squall had given him credit for.
Instructor Ermatti had dedicated an entire week of three hour lectures how items like silence powder were next to useless in a direct fight, but were great for ambushes and defensive measures. Seifer had appeared to sleep through the entire class and had loudly protested—like he always did—his detention for it. However, Squall’s allergic reaction and the complete and total absence of Shiva’s presence in his conscious thoughts proved Seifer really hadn’t been asleep. The situation Squall and Irvine were in was almost an exact replica of the one Ermatti had used as an example. Squall was even willing to bet there were five soldiers at the top of the stairs, including the two who were supposed to be outside guarding the door.
Squall smirked down at the dust. With a firm nod, more for himself than anyone else, he calmly opened the door as wide as it would go, cast Aero to blow the sparkling powder out, and tossed back a Remedy to cancel the silence effect as Irvine yanked the door closed again. Irvine was looking at him like he was insane, but Squall simply handed him a Remedy and readjusted his junctions, focusing on defense. Seifer had just issued a challenge, and Squall was more than willing to accept. It actually made the whole thing easier for Squall. It wasn’t a mission anymore, just another one of his and Seifer’s sessions in the Training Center. Except this time, it was Squall, his team, a terrorist and her dog, and a displaced sorcerer against Seifer and the Galbadian army.
His smirk shifting into a cold smile, Squall silently motioned to the stairs and made the sign for ambush ahead, before he started up the narrow, metal stairway, leaving a very confused and frustrated Irvine to follow him, but Squall couldn’t bring himself to care what Irvine thought about his odd behavior, let alone how to explain it to the other man. Squall knew the one thing he could say explain would only confuse Irvine further.
This was going to be fun.
Tags: crossover, ffviii, hp, irvine/selphie, side effects, squall/harry