Just to prove I'm still writing it...

Here’s a bit more of Heritage- I dunno if there’s an existing thread, but if there is it’ll be mired somewhere on page 96987 and really, I’m too bone-idle anyway :-p

This is hot off the press, unedited and therefore struggles to get moving at times, but what’s there does like to paint the picture of what is to come- however, I got writer’s block (well, extreme ear and neckache) at the worst possible time- the following scene would have been an absolute hum-dinger :mwahaha: <-in that sense, my subscription to Cliffhangers anonymous has recently been renewed for another decade :-p

Jules slammed the piece of paper down on the desk in front of the rest of the senior SeeDs, who all responded by either gasping in shock, or simply shaking their heads in disbelief. Even Jules herself was still struggling to come to terms with the day’s events so far.

“They’ve finally struck at our very heart,” Shan, one of Jules’s fellow senior SeeDs, commented.

“But I thought it was your sister who attacked the headmistress?” Another one of the senior SeeDs, named Trevor, asked, incredulously.

“It was,” Jules said, her voice still wavering slightly. “It may be a sign of her dementia, but for the time being, we are to operate under the assumption that Sarah is in league with the Dark SeeD.”

“Well, then,” Shan continued, “that raises a major problem. If the dark SeeD have access to Sarah’s magical powers-” Jules silenced Shan with a wave.

“I think we’re all aware of the danger,” Jules stated, calmly.

“The question now,” Erica, yet another senior SeeD, asked, “is what do we do about it? The headmistress is incapacitated, and we haven’t had a full-time commander ever since Commander Leonheart…” Erica stuttered, avoiding Jules’s gaze, “…left us, two years ago. We need leadership.”

“The question is,” Trevor queried, “who should be the one to lead us?” One by one, all the heads in the room turned until they centred on a single person. Jules looked up, only to see seven pairs of eyes staring straight at her.

“Me?” Jules asked, incredulously. Try as she might, she couldn’t work out how seven men and women, all of whom were in their late twenties/early thirties, would look to an 18-year old girl for leadership.

“You have more knowledge of the Dark SeeD than any of us,” Shan stated, “you’re the natural choice.”

“Is that it?” Jules asked, defensively, “or is the real reason more…genetic… than you’re letting on?” Shan immediately knew what Jules was getting at.

“This has nothing to do with your father,” Shan reassured Jules, who still looked far from convinced.

“Well, then,” Jules said authoritatively, “if I’m the one with the experience, then when the time comes, I shall be the one to lead the first mission against them.” The seven other SeeDs all began yelling in disagreement.

“What?” Suriya, Jules’s best friend in the senior SeeDs, asked. Like Jules, Suriya was a very young senior SeeD, only 22 years old, and the two of them had grown close very quickly. While they may not have been as good friends as, say, Connor and Zell were, Suriya felt it was her responsibility to look after Jules, who was practically an orphan.

“I accept the job,” Jules said, smirking, as Suriya still looked on, aghast.

“What are your first orders, Commander?” Shan asked, smirking slightly as he emphasised Jules’s new rank.

“We need intelligence,” Jules simply stated. “I want to find out where they’re based, who their leaders are and how they’re funded. I want to hurt them the same way they hurt me- I mean, the same way they hurt us.” The other senior SeeDs nodded and began to leave the room, with the exception of Suriya, who approached the new commander.

“Are you sure about this?” Suriya asked her commander and friend.

“I’m sure,” Jules replied, her blue eyes making contact with Suriya’s dark eyes. “They have to be stopped, at any cost.”

“Even the cost of your own sister?” Suriya asked, sharply. Jules turned away from her friend, now wanting her to see the pain her question had caused.

How? Jules had silently thought to herself, ever since she’d received news of Sarah’s attack, and her allegiance with the Dark SeeD. How could you do this to me, sis? While Sarah might not have been aware of the role the dark SeeD played in her father’s death, Jules had made no secret of her personal hatred for the organisation, and had hoped that Sarah might have taken the hint. However, Sarah had now aligned herself with the Dark SeeD, and in doing so, had torn Jules’s heart in two.
Sensing that her friend was in pain, Suriya stepped closer to Jules.

“if you ever need any help, I’ll be here for you,” she said, quietly, before leaving Jules alone with her thoughts.

“Thanks,” Jules whispered, as Suriya exited the vast conference room. Sighing, Jules moved over to the vast window at the end of the conference room, and stared out over the fields, toward Goldenrod Village, Balamb Town and beyond, all the while silently praying for her sister’s sanity…

Also staring out over the fields was the mother of the 18-year old woman, her thoughts still filled with contempt toward her eldest child. Her other daughters had arrived back from the Garden late the previous night, and had gone into her room to see her, not that Rinoa acknowledged their presence, of course- she was their mother, they were supposed to give her unconditional devotion.

“I never did like that girl,” the voice inside Rinoa’s head began to say toward the emotionally tortured woman.

“Who?” Rinoa asked, bitterly, barely diverting her attention from the fields outside her house.

“Your second oldest daughter,” Chris continued, sneering as he said the words. “So selfish, stupid, obnoxious- she takes after you in so many ways it’s unbelievable.”

“Don’t you DARE talk about my family in that way!” Rinoa hissed, rising from her chair to face the spectre. “Sarah is a good girl!”

“When was the last time she came back here to see you?” Chris asked, feigning incredulity.

“She’s been busy with her training,” Rinoa replied, “I can’t expect her to be available every hour of every day.”

“But you expect that of your other daughters?” Chris asked. “Even Julia?” Rinoa let out a slight growl as Chris mentioned the name of her eldest daughter.

“Don’t talk to me about that bitch!” Rinoa hissed, sitting back down in her chair and turning her back on Chris.

“You know, you really do surprise me at times,” Chris said, sighing and shaking his head. Rinoa ignored him, continuing her vigil at her window.

“You know she’s gone away,” Chris said, whispering in Rinoa’s ear, which caused her to cringe.

“I know,” Rinoa said, defiantly.

“They may want your help to stop her.”

“They won’t get it.”

“Are you sure?” Chris asked, prompting Rinoa to turn round and face him, defiance in her eyes.

“I’m sure,” Rinoa said, smugly. “Sarah can choose her own path in life. I won’t stop her.”

“As you wish,” Chris said, walking away from Rinoa, with a smirk on his face.

Jules sat down behind the commander’s desk, the desk that was now hers. Ever since Squall’s death, it had been left untouched (same as the position of commander), as a sort-of “shrine” to his memory, but the time had come to begin afresh, with a new commander. Jules surveyed the contents of the desk, trying to suppress her emotions as she did so.

Squall was a very tidy man, intolerant of mess both in his work AND his home life- Jules had been on the receiving end of stern lectures from her father on many occasions for not keeping her room tidy enough to meet his high standards. Squall’s desk was a reflection of this- all of his letters were neatly filed in straight, vertical piles, his pens were neatly arranged to one side of his desk, even his drinks coaster was exactly parallel with the edge of his desk. Hesitant to disturb anything, half out of respect for her father’s tidiness and half out of fear of getting told off again, Jules reached forward, and picked up a photograph from the side of what was now her laptop. She studied the picture carefully- it was of her whole family, all her sisters, her aunt and her grandfather, and it had been exactly positioned so that when squall sat down, it would have been the first thing he saw. Unable to control her emotions any longer, a single tear fell from Jules’s eye, landing on the glass frame of the photograph. Suddenly, though, the intercom on her desk rang, bringing Jules back to reality. Replacing the photograph exactly where she had found it, she pushed the button, activating the two-way link.

“Who is it?” Jules asked, putting on the most neutral-sounding voice she could muster.

“It’s just me,” Alec said over the intercom’s speaker. “You busy?” Jules’s mouth opened, subconsciously preparing to say something along the lines of “Not now, Alec” or “I’m not in the mood”, but before the words left her mouth, Jules paused. Maybe a little company would be nice, right about now, she thought, allowing herself a small smirk,

“Come in,” Jules said, pushing another button and opening the door, through which Alex entered the office.

Well, I suppose you could call this progress, the young man thought to himself as he approached the large, intimidating desk. He stood opposite Jules, studying the young brunette as she looked through the contents of the desk’s drawers. Jules looked up, seeing the young man still standing there, before realising.

“Oh, sorry,” Jules said, gesturing to one of the chairs on the other side of the desk from her, “please take a seat.” Alec sat down, while Jules continued her rummaging.

“The desk suits you,” Alec said, as Jules finished her rummaging, sighed, and rested her elbows on the desk.

“I feel like I’m just playing at being commander,” Jules said, sighing uneasily. “This was my father’s desk- it’s not mine.”

“Yes it is, Jules,” Alec said, calmly. “You earned it. We’re at war, and we need our best and our brightest where they belong. And you belong there.”

“I guess,” Jules said, leaning back in the chair and rubbing her face with her hands.

“You’re the right person to lead this fight,” Alec continued. “On that subject, have you made any progress locating the dark SeeD?”

“No progress,” Jules sighed, “not even a START. I’ve dispatched several undercover units to all the major cities and told them to keep their eyes open, but we’ve got to believe the dark SeeD are trained to the same standard that we are.”

“Well,” Alec said, trying to put on a comforting smile, “look on the bright side- at least that makes the odds even.”

“With the exception of the fact that they now have a high-level sorceress with them,” Jules retorted.

“Okay,” Alec said, “but all the doctors’ reports I’ve heard about indicate that the magic in her brain is slowly dissipating. The old Sarah will be back soon, I’m sure of it.”

“I hope so…” Jules murmured. “If you don’t mind, Alec, I’m really busy, I-”

“I know, I know,” Alec said, quietly. “I just have one favour to ask.”

“Go ahead,” Jules said, softly.

“When the time comes to make our first strike, I want to go with you. I want to be on the team.” Alec made his request plainly and calmly, almost as if he was asking to borrow Jules’s bike.

“You’re an instructor, Alec,” Jules retorted, “you’re out of practice-”

“I’m not,” Alec interrupted. “I practice every day in the training centre, against harder and harder monsters each time. I can be of use to you, I know it. Let’s not forget, I am the youngest SeeD of all time.”

“I guess,” Jules said. “I’ll make my decision closer to the time. Now please, Alec, I just need some time alone.”

“OK,” Alec whispered, rising from his chair and heading out of the office.

“Alec?” Jules said, before the young teacher left the office.

“Hmm?” Alec asked, curiously.

“Thanks,” Jules said, smiling. Alec simply smiled in response, and left the office.

If you were to ask Alec later, he would pick that exact moment as the moment he fell hopelessly in love with Jules. Previously, he had been attracted to her on more than a physical level, the memories of their first relationship still fresh in his mind, but when she flashed that smile at Alec that afternoon, he knew instantly that he would do anything, anything at all, to make that girl happy.

More coming :hahaha;

Your cliffhangers are eeevil even if the worst might not be at the very end of the parts (thinking about Rinoa) :eek:

bows and worships

Necroposting… but I refuse to start a THIRD topic on this (plus it happened to be on the first page I clicked on at random :mwahaha: ) This is a big secene, and hopefully a good one. Eepecially seeing as it took me 2 1/2 months to write the bastard.

The lone janitor walked along the corridor, wiping the dust off of the rails lining the corridor’s walls, and wiping down the engraved plates attached to the doors leading from the corridor, as he had done every day for as long as he could remember. Always the same routine, dust, polish, repeat. All of a sudden, he heard footsteps coming from behind him.

Crap, he thought, them again. He took a deep breath and continued his cleaning, hoping that the three youths were in a good mood that day and would choose to ignore him.

“Come on, Bugs, did you screw her or not?” One of the youths grunted to his friend in an artificially deep voice.

“Nah, not tonight,” the youth known as “Bugs” grunted back, also artificially lowering his voice, “I’m gonna make her-” Bugs paused, having spotted the janitor down the hallway.

“Well, well, if it ain’t Strife!” One of the other youths sneered, as they surrounded the janitor. “My boots need cleaning, Strife! Lick them clean!” Paying no attention to the youths, but bracing himself for the pain that was coming.

“Didn’t you hear him?” Bugs said, slapping the janitor hard on the back of the head. “he told you to lick his boots!”

“…Whatever,” the janitor simply replied. He was about to move on to the next doorplate when, all of a sudden, his world exploded as a fist flew into his face, very quickly. Bugs’s fist, to be precise.

“Do as you’re damn well told!” Bugs yelled at the janitor, who was now lying prone on the floor, blood trickling from his nose. Roughly, he and the other youth lifted the janitor off the floor, and began rubbing his face into the boots of the third thug. All throughout this humiliation, the janitor had one thought in his mind: This isn’t me… This isn’t me…

Eventually, the youths stopped, and, after delivering one final punch to the janitor’s gut to ensure he wouldn’t be following them, walked off down the corridor.

“Enough fun, lads, we’ve got work to do, ya know?” Bugs said, looking back on the janitor with contempt. “Those missiles aren’t going to fire themselves…”

It had been a long, hard day for Jules- she doubted anything would have been able to top being told she had a dead twin brother and nearly losing her younger sister all within one day, but boy, she had been dead wrong. Over the course of the past 24 hours, she had suddenly become one of the most powerful people on the face of the planet.

It’s no wonder I can’t sleep… she silently mused to herself as, clad in only her pyjamas and dressing gown, she strolled around the upper levels of Balamb Garden, watching the night shift carry out her orders, fortifying the Garden’s defences and preparing for the inevitable battle. She stopped halfway along the fourth floor balcony, and leaned her elbows on the edge, observing the troops and workers far below.

“Good evening, commander,” Jules heard the quiet, well-spoken voice of Zell Almasy address her.

“Hi, Zell,” Jules said, turning to face the tall, newly-inducted SeeD. “Are you on the night shift, then?”

“I’m helping out whenever I can,” Zell muttered. “It’s helps take my mind off…” Zell trailed off, sighing and looking at the floor.

“I understand,” Jules whispered in reply. “How is she?”

“She’s still unconscious,” Zell answered, “but the doctors say she’s stable for now.”

“There’s no sign of when she’ll be getting out?” Jules asked, hesitantly. While she looked forward to the idea of sharing some of the responsibility, she couldn’t help but remember the last meeting she’s had with her headmistress.

“Not for at least a week,” Zell said. “Looks like you’ll be in charge a while longer.”

“Great,” Jules whispered, half-heartedly, and resuming her observation of the workers on the bottom floor.

“No news on them, yet, I take it?” Zell asked, still hanging around.

“No, nothing,” Jules said. “Not even Esthar’s satellites can find anything.”

“Well,” Zell said, “maybe they’re looking in the wrong place?”

“How so?” Jules asked, intrigued as to where Zell was heading with his argument.

“We’re concentrating on finding their base, right?” Zell asked.

“Yeah,” Jules responded, “we figure they have to have a base of operations somewhere, but we’ve scanned all the continents, sent agents around every major city for the last two years, nothing. It’s as if they’re constantly on the move…” Jules’s voice suddenly trailed off, as a thought crept into her mind.

“A mobile base?” Zell asked.

“It’s feasible,” Jules said. “It’d be an easy way to avoid detection. However, anything big enough to hold more than 20 people we’d be able to detect moving across land.”

“Maybe they’re not on land?” Zell asked. All of a sudden, a smile crept onto Jules’s face, and she walked over to the nearest communications point.

“Get me President Seagill,” she said, talking into the receiver.

It’s alive! :yipee: Great job Neb, I’ve been waiting for this :slight_smile: You want it in the update?

Not yet, thanks- I need to chuck another couple thousand words in there, just to make it actually worth updating- for reasons I’d rather not go into right now, I’ve not been writing as much as I was earlier (I still often look back on retribution and think “how the shit did I churn that out that fast?”). I’ll get back to you once I’ve done a little more on it. :hahaha;

A few hours later, after dawn had broken over Balamb Garden, Jules had assembled all of the senior seeds, plus Alec and Zell, in a meeting in the Garden’s conference room.

“We think we’ve found them,” Jules said quietly, while contemplating the large SeeD emblem that hung on the wall at one end of the meeting table. How dare they bastardise this crest, Jules silently thought to herself, desperately trying to control her growing rage.

“Are you sure?” Shan asked, amidst the gasps from the rest of the table.

“Reasonably so,” Jules said. “Using Esthar’s satellite tracking technology, we have detected a large, unregistered cruiser sailing around this area.” Jules gestured toward the western-most part of the world map hanging on the room’s wall, to the side of the SeeD crest.

“Well,” Shan said, leaning back in his chair, “that’ll make reaching it fun. The only landmass even close to that area is the island closest to hell. If we try an all-out assault we’ll have to go through there, and you know what that means.”

“Half of our forces would be dead or wounded before we even got in a position to attack,” Erica interjected.

“We need to infiltrate this ship,” Jules said. “I’ll take in a small team, just 3 or 4 SeeDs, using false IDs. We’ll go onboard under the guise of new recruits, have a reccy around the ship, then get out.”

“Good in theory,” Suriya said, “I have one question, though- how exactly do you intend to join them just like ‘that’?” She finished, snapping her finger for extra emphasis.

“I won’t pretend it’ll be easy,” Jules stated, finally taking a seat at the head of the table, “but for now, it’s our best hope of stopping the Dark SeeD.”

“And you’re sure it’s them?” Lucas asked.

“It has to be,” Jules stated. “Either way, there’s still a large, unregistered naval vessel out there, and it needs investigating.” At that, the SeeDs sat around the table all nodded.

“So,” Alec enquired, “when do we leave?”

Two and a bit months and this is all I can come up with :-/ I think my imagination’s broken or something. Ah well, at least I got to “OMG major event!!!111!!11eins” number one, as you can see below. I am seriously considering ditching this- I don’t want to still be writing it in 2009 (then again, that would by no means be a slowness record for me)

“As soon as we can,” Jules replied. “I’ve already sent out some field agents to try and attract the attention of some Dark SeeD recruiters- I’m not expecting instant results but it’s reasonable to assume we still outnumber them, so they’ll be interested in any new recruits they can get.”

“And in the meantime?” Erica asked.

“In the meantime,” Jules answered, “there’s nothing we can do but wait. They wouldn’t dare attack the Garden openly- not when we’re expecting it.”

“I hope you’re right,” Zell said quietly. “They have a habit of striking when we least expect them.”

“Garden’s too fortified,” Lucas simply stated. “A full-frontal attack would simply fail, no matter how strong they are.”

“Maybe they have something else in mind…” Zell wondered aloud, as Jules officially brought the meeting to a close.

Zell sat down beside Connor’s bed in the infirmary, and gently nudged the sleeping teenager in an attempt to wake him.

“You awake, man?” Zell asked, but was greeted with no response from Connor. Frowning slightly, Zell gently pushed on the bedclothes above Connor’s broken ribs.

“Whoa, whoa whoa!” Connor yelled, suddenly sitting up and becoming a lot more alert than he had been previously. When he saw who it was who was teasing him, he calmed down, and laid back down in the bed.

“Hi boss,” Connor said, jokily.

“It’s only one rank,” Zell quietly said back. “It’s not as if I own the Garden or anything.”

“Nah, not yet, anyway,” Connor teased. “I heard about your mom, by the way. How is she?”

“She’s recovering,” Zell whispered back, trying to hide the emotion in his voice. “The doctors say she should be back at work in a couple of weeks.”

“I still can’t believe Sarah is capable of that,” Connor said, shaking his head. “It has to be the magic inside her brain, there’s no other explanation, none at all.”

“I want to believe that, I really do,” Zell mumbled, “but to join the dark SeeD… there has to be some thought process behind that, some consciousness.”

“It’s not Sarah, it can’t be,” Connor said quietly to himself. “It can’t be.” There was a brief pause while Zell pondered what he was going to say next. Before he could say anything, however, he was interrupted by a loud alarm. Zell and Connor both instantly recognised what the alarm meant.

“That’s-“ Zell began.

“Black alert,” Connor concluded, gulping slightly. “The Garden is under attack.” Immediately, Zell left the infirmary, running as fast as he could toward the Garden’s command centre.

In her office, the highest room of Galbaldia Garden, headmistress Xu Klimister heard the klaxons blare, and she immediately knew what it meant. Sighing, the forty-four year-old woman slowly rose from her seat and stared out of the window, across the vast expanse of the Galbaldian desert, her eyes finally focusing on several indistinct specks on the horizon.

“Damn,” Xu silently whispered, as the specks became dots, then blobs, followed finally by shape she could easily identify, even head-on. The shapes were missiles. Hundreds of very fast, very ruthless missiles, heading straight for her Garden.

“I’m sorry, Alec,” Xu mouthed silently, as the first of the missiles slammed into the Garden just five feet below where Xu was standing, and her office exploded all around her.

Zell found the command centre in a state of total chaos upon his arrival, with SeeDs running all around the large, but cramped room, and most of them desperate to get Jule’s attention, which was already spread across at least six SeeD lieutenants.

OMG major event!1one… sorry. Ahem.
Looking good, Neb, I’m happy that you’re still moving forwards. Kill that no-inspiration X1 monster!