Chibi-Xu: [peaking around the curtain] "Ano... they aren't coming out." Chibi-Quandry: "Why not?" Chibi-Xu: "They're, uh... scared of the knives." Chibi-Quandry: "Well the omake's about to start! CUE SOMETHING!!" Chibi-Xu: "Riiiiight..." [....] Something: ^-^ "omake Omake OMAKE! WAAAIIIIII!!" [Something dances accross the screen, performing some amazing trick that're fun to view. Really it is! See how amazed you are? Say "Wow!"] [SAY IT!] Chibi-Quandry: "Xu--" [I don't hear you saying it!!] Chibi-Quandry: "Xu! That's enough, thank you!" [I DON'T HEA-- oh, okay.] Chibi-Quandry: "Now come out of the brackets and get ready for your opening dialogue with Sean!" Chibi-Xu: *ahem* "Hi! Welcome to anoth--" Chibi-Quandry: "Not yet!! You have to wait for the titles to roll!" Chibi-Sean: "Can we start over?" Sowing the SeeDs: OMAKE THEATRE 5!!! Chibi-Quandry: "Gyaaah! This is number six! Who forgot to change the sign?" Chibi-Greenbeans: "Maybe letting you direct this one wasn't such a great idea..." Chibi-Quandry: "Hey, blame Chaos! He was the last one to use the stage! I can't be hel--" Chibi-Xu: [Deliberately interrupting] "Hi! Welcome to another edition of Omake Theatre!" Chibi-Sean: "Today we have the misfortune of presenting another omake done by Quandry." Chibi-Xu: [Plastic smile] ^-^ "That's right, Sean! But it's my pleasure to tell you that this one actually has something to do with the world of Final Fantasy!" Chibi-Sean: "Really? Well! That is something!" [Oooh/Ahhh sign lights up for audience] Chibi-Xu: "Yep! So without further ado, which would make this steaming pile of text take much longer to read than any omake should, let's get started!" Chibi-Quandry: "Wait, guys! Don't they need some background or something?" Xe & Sean: "NO." SD-Quandry: "...okay..." As a part of the new security model proposed for the garden, every night one of the classrooms was converted into a temporary base of operations for those on patrol. Some of the terminals were loaded with a surveillance program tied in to the garden's internal cameras and motion sensors. Others were configured for use with the central hard-line communication system, which the patrolling squads used to report in every half hour. Students would sit at these workstations, each meticulously scrutinizing their areas of responsibility for the garden. Three SeeD graduates were chosen to supervise Patrol Headquarters, or PHQ, by way of a draft system based on their ID numbers. These SeeDs were then assigned to four hour shifts by way of a simple lottery, which they would quickly become familiar with as the four most sleeplessly boring hours ever to plague their SeeD careers. "Enrichment activity my butt," Selphie scoffed. "There'd have to be some kind of activity for this to be enriching." She scored the first shift tonight, and thought she'd make use of the otherwise wasted time by updating her web page. However, there were some problems. "Aw, man!" she spat. "What's wrong?" asked the student at the terminal next to her. "Oh, just this stupid thing," she said, wiping her face impatiently with her hand. "Did G.I.T.S. schedule an outage tonight or something?" "Not that I know of. Why?" "I'm trying to update my website, but the FTP server isn't letting me in." "I'd give G.I.T.S. a call, then." "I hate talking to them," Selphie sighed. "Oh well, I guess it's the only way to find out what's going on." Resignedly she picked up the telephone and began dialing. After a few rings, a rather deep voice came on the line. "Garden Information Technology Services, may I help you?" "Hey, this is Selphie up in classroom #2." "Hi Selphie. What can I do for you?" "Well, are you guys having problems?" "Uh..... no.... we're fine, thanks. How are you?" "Fine. I mean no, that's not what I meant! I mean is the network down or something?" "The whole thing?" "Any of it!!" "No." "Are you sure?" "Yes." "Then why can't I get into the FTP server!?" "Which one?" "What do you mean which one? Look, I'm trying to update my webpage and I can't get in, okay?" "Ah, okay. That narrows it down to three of them. What IP address are you using?" "The same one I always use, I guess. I dunno. I haven't changed anything." "Of course not." The two of them sighed simultaneously, each certain that it was going to be a very long night. *** "Are you sure this is safe?" Greenbeans asked. "Of course it's safe," Chaos said, maneuvering the crowbar into position. "What are they going to do? We're the authors." "I just don't want to get kicked out before we even get in this time." "Trust me, it's fine. I doubt anyone has even entered this section of the garden's tunnels in years." With a forceful push on the crowbar, the hatch creaked open. "Beans before beauty," offered Chaos, extending his hand toward the opening. "Watch it buddy," she warned, shaking her finger at him as she walked past. The stale smell of old oxidized metal engulfed them as they entered. Chaos turned on a flashlight and looked around. The smell, the cobwebs, the mold on the walls, and the thick coat of dust on the floors were all signs that this area had gone unmaintained for a very long time. "By the looks of this place, maybe no one has ever been here?" he joked. "I know people always say this, but I have a strange feeling in my gut. That's all." "Relax, we're good. We should have some time to explore the place at least. I don't think they have any surveillance in this area." *** A small red light on one of the terminals began blinking. Sam, the student watching that panel, had fallen asleep. The student next to him sat playing with her kunai on the desk instead of her own panel, but noticed the light out of the corner of her eye.. Kae dug her elbow into his side. "Ow!" he yelped, flicking his eyelids open. "Good morning sunshine," she said. "Huh? Oh crap!" Sam whispered. He looked over at Selphie, but saw that she was involved in a conversation on the telephone. He relaxed his shoulders and breathed a sigh. "Thanks," he said. "That saved me a few hours worth of lecture." "Yeah, well, you might not be so fortunate next time," she told him. "Anyway, what's that?" Kae pointed at the blinking red light. "Huh? Oh crap!" *** "Okay. Now it's asking me for a login," Selphie explained. "Good," said the technician. "Now just enter the login and password that you usually do, and you should be fine." "Argh! See? It still says Invalid Login. Are you sure there isn't something wrong with the network?" "Mam, if the network was down, you wouldn't be prompted for a login. It's more likely a problem with your passw--" "Don't you 'mam' me! I'm typing the same password I've always typed, so unless you guys changed something, it should work!" "Excuse me, Selphie?" "WHAT!?" The student stumbled back a step, startled. "Hold on for a second," she said into the phone. She pressed it against her shoulder and looked up at the student. "I'm sorry Sam. What is it?" "I think you should come look at this." Selphie breathed a short sigh and nodded. "I have to go," she said to the phone, not bothering to lift it back to her face on its way to the receiver. She followed Sam over to his panel and had a look at the screen. "Motion detector 4 is picking something up, but there's nothing on the camera," he explained. "Let me see." Selphie sat at the terminal and panned the camera around its axis. It was a camera in the Quad, near the northwest corner of the lower area. She saw a bush moving in the wind, and zoomed in on it. "There's your culprit," she said with a smirk. "I guess these things are pretty sensitive these days. They'll pick up all kinds of activity, but none of it will be interesting." She began to stand. "Selphie, wait," urged Kae, "Look!" Selphie sat back down, looked at the monitor, and caught her breath. "WHO IS THAT!?" she yelled. Every student in the room turned and looked at Selphie. *** Quandry stood up and rubbed his sore back. Falling off the rail and into a bush had given him quite a jolt. In fact it gave his Lyra quite a jolt too, since it stopped playing the MP3 he had been listening to. Climbing out of the bush, he straightened his headphones, picked a few leaves out of his bear ears, and pushed play on the Lyra. For some reason, his bear ears weren't picking up the Jet Set Radio broadcast anymore, so he was glad to have some backup tunes with him. Still a bit sore, he skated in a few circles to shake it off before continuing on his search. "Actually," he said to himself, looking at the ground, "this might be another good place to tag." He reached for the spray can on his belt. *** "What's he saying?" Kae asked. "The Quad cameras don't have audio," Sam answered. "What is he doing to my quad?" Selphie moaned. She watched as the strange fuzzy-eared figure knelt down and started spraying something directly in the center of the quad floor. "Is he writing something?" asked a nearby student. "Is there an overhead camera?" asked another. By now several of the students had come over to the workstation where Selphie sat to watch the action. The figure on the screen stood and spun a wide 360 on the floor around the marking as if to admire his work. "What did he do to my quad!?" Selphie asked again, hopping between cameras in the quad area to find a better angle. She followed as the skater rolled toward the stairway, leaped into the air, and landed on the banister. At that moment, a blue burst of light came from each skate and propelled him along the rest of the banister. At the top of the stairway he jumped again and continued to skate his way out of the quad. "He's headed for the hub," Kae called out. "What time is it?" Sam looked at his watch. "Fifteen minutes until next check-in," he said. "Who's on patrol in the quad right now?" "Teams four and five, according to the schedule," a student across the room answered. Kae turned and faced the students at a workstation two rows behind her. "Hub Area, check their locations and get them on the hard-line." "Already on it," said one of them, with a phone already at his ear. "Also see if you can get a visual on the suspect, and follow him. Call out any area changes." "Got it." Kae hesitated for a moment and realized that she was kind of starting to bark out orders. Embarrassment set a blush into her cheeks as she looked at Selphie, and found Selphie to be staring back up at her. "Sorry," Kae motioned with her lips. Selphie just shook her head. "Don't be. Right now, I need to see what he put on the floor, but none of these cameras have an overhead view." "I can make a team available to go take a look and call us with some information," Kae offered. "A good suggestion, but I think it's more important that all the teams stay focused on their patrols right now." "Of course," said Kae meekly. "I have an idea," Sam said. "May I?" Selphie stood and leaned over the back of the chair as Sam took his place again. She watched as he pulled up a control program for a classroom just down the hall from them. He remotely opened the shield over one of the windows, and then switched to that room's surveillance camera. All the classroom cameras were mounted on the ceiling toward the back of the room, between the windows, so he used the camera control to spin it all the way around until they could see the window he had opened. "This classroom is almost directly over the quad," he explained. "Since the cameras have a wide enough range of motion, I can point it out the window and probably see the floor of the quad if I zoom in far enough." "There's too much glare," Selphie said. "Are you sure we'll have a clear view?" "I have that covered," Sam said. He hit a few more buttons and turned off all the lights in that classroom. Much of the glare instantly disappeared. As he zoomed in, the picture became clearer, until finally they could all see what was written on the floor of the Quad. "Hmm," Sam hummed. "Well what is that supposed to mean?" "I don't know," Kae said slowly, giving it some thought. "Any clue, Selphie?" Selphie had a strangely blank look on her face as she stared at the monitor. "Selphie?" "Get Quistis." "You want me to call--" "You three," she shouted to the group standing guard by the door, "Go get Quistis." They looked at her. "Go!" They went, and Selphie returned to her workstation. Sam looked at Kae. "What was that about?" he asked. "I don't know," Kae whispered, "but Quistis has third shift tonight. I don't think she's going to be thrilled about coming in this early. Selphie still has three hours left on duty." "Then I guess it must be important, but I still don't know what this is supposed to mean." They both turned and stared at the monitor, wondering. *** Happily bopping to the music blasting through his head, Quandry glided through the main hall of the garden. He stopped occasionally to spray something as he skated, until he came upon a nice spot to try one of his new tricks. He rolled to a halt on his heels and went over the trick in his mind. "Lessee. I have to skate that way and do a 180 front-flip onto the rail to get on it facing the opposite direction." He examined the amount of 'runway' he had to do this, and nodded his satisfaction. "Okay. Then I have to kick in my boosters right away to oppose the backward momentum. Heh... that oughta pull a few G's! Assuming I keep my balance, I should successfully be able to grind on a rail in the opposite direction I landed on it. Sweet. I can do this!" He skipped to a more appropriate track on the Lyra (an orchestral piece from Total Annihilation) and skated two quick circles to gather speed. Once he was going fast enough he skated forward, parallel to the railing. He jumped, executed the front flip while turning, and positioned the center bars of his skates over the rail as he landed. Without pausing to breathe he activated the boosters to propel him along the rail. Having achieved all this, he was very proud of himself. As he grinded along the circular hallway of the garden's hub, however, he noticed two things that started to seriously throw off his concentration on balance. The first thing was that the railing he had chosen to glide along was separating the walkway from a large pool of water in the center of the garden. The second and perhaps more urgent thing was that two armed guards were patrolling along the hall toward him. "Um, um, not good," he thought as he started to teeter on the rail. He desperately tried to teeter toward the solid floor side of his situation, but fell to the wet side instead. His left hand caught and held the rail tightly enough to keep him from getting submerged. The guards continued to approach as he dangled helplessly over the water. "So what did PHQ have to say?" one asked the other. "They said they actually spotted a possible intruder, and that we should stay extra alert." Their voices just barely reached him over the volume of his music. "'Intruder?' Was it another beast from outside?" "They weren't really clear on that, actually... they just said stay alert." "Hmm. 'Intruder,' huh? That's odd." The two of them stopped and leaned back against the railing. Quandry's hand was right between them, still tightly holding on. As he dangled and the guards talked, he had horrific fantasies of letting go and falling into the water. The splash would certainly alert them. He'd probably get shot at while trying to swim away, maybe even killed. Worse yet, his skates would probably short out when he hit the water! He closed his eyes tightly, fearing the worst, but tried to keep his focus on holding his grip and listening to the guards. "Were you out during that last one?" "Yeah actually, but my team was in the parking garage at the time. I heard it was a Caterchipiller." "Really? I thought it was just a bite bug." "Well I didn't actually see it, and you know how people like to exaggerate." "Exaggerate? Why bother? I mean, we have whole T-Rexaurs in the training area, and somebody wants to brag on a Caterchi--" "Wait, shh!" He cut him off and looked around. "What is it? "Do you hear... music?" "Music? Hmm..." He opened his ears and looked around also. Quandry clenched his teeth. He didn't dare reach for his Lyra to turn down the volume. He didn't want to move at all. "No. Are you sure?" "Hmm. Maybe it's just been a really long shift. Actually, I've had this song stuck in my head all day." They both leaned back against the rail again, but Quandry felt only slightly relieved. "Which one?" "Actually it's the theme song to an anime I've been watching." "What is it with you and saying 'actually?'" The panel across from them beeped loudly and started flashing. "Never mind. Must be another call from PHQ. I wonder what's up?" They walked over to the panel, and one of them picked up the handset. "Hello? ....what do you mean?" He turned and looked at his partner. "No, that's my teammate," he said with a laugh. His partner looked more confused as the conversation went on, because he could only hear half of it. "He... he is? What? .... Paint? ....um, okaaay...." *** "I've spotted the suspect," announced a student from the Hub Area workstation. "He's still in the hub, and he keeps spraying things." Selphie stood and ran over to the workstation to look. They watched him spray something on one of the computer panels, stop and think, and then start skating in circles. "What is he doing? What is his purpose?" Selphie asked. They watched as he jumped up on the rail. "Is he going swimming now?" Kae asked, having followed Sam over to watch. The same blue flash of light that they saw before came from his skates, and he slid along the rail. "Whoah, that was pretty cool," Sam said. Kae elbowed him again. "What?" "Look! There's team four!" Selphie shouted, pointing. "We've got him!" The skater fell off of the rail. "Whoops, there he goes," commented a student. "Nope! That was close though," said Kae as they watched him cling desperately to the rail. "He's a sitting duck!" Selphie laughed. "Little punk. Mess up MY quad, will you!" The team walked along calmly, and stopped to rest in front of the dangling vandal. "Hey... what are they doing!?" They stood and talked to each other. "Did they lose him or something? What are they doing?" Impatient, Selphie reached for the handset on the panel and began to dial. She watched the guard go over to the panel, and waited for one of them to answer. "He's right behind you!!" she shouted. "...I mean the intruder! He's behind you!" Kae heard a laugh on the other end of the phone. "NO, not your teammate!" Selphie shouted back. "The intruder! ... Yes! ... Look, aren't you curious as to why there's PAINT all over that panel? ... Yes paint! Now turn around and put him into custody!" *** The guard hung up the phone and turned to look at his partner. "What is it?" he asked. "Actually, uh... she says that you're the intruder." "WHAT!?" "Do you have any paint?" "What are you TALKING about!?" "Just hand it over," he said, approaching his partner slowly. Deciding that this amusing situation would be a good distraction, Quandry reached his right hand up and started to climb back over the railing. He peeked over the top and saw that they were paying too much attention to each other to notice him. "Now that's luck," he thought to himself, and climbed to the top of the rail. Suddenly the entire garden shook with a booming female voice that came over the intercom. "HE'S ON THE RAIL!" Selphie screamed. Cid, in his office, dropped the book he was reading and fell out of his chair. Squall was in the bathroom, washing his hands, and spilled water all over his pants when he jumped. The two guards stopped their bickering and looked directly at Quandry, who had frozen still at the top of the rail. The three looked at each other for a moment. The Lyra skipped to "H.T" from Trigun. "GET HIM!" Selphie yelled, again over the intercom. The guards ran toward him, and the one on the left jumped to grab him. Activating his boosters again, he bursted off of the rail and jumped over the guards. The one who had dove for him quickly found nothing left in front of him to grab onto, and fell over the other side of the rail. "That was pretty stupid, actually..." he thought to himself, as he splashed belly-first into the pool below. Quandry skated as fast as he could away from the remaining guard, who got a couple of shots off from his stun gun, but missed. Quandry turned the first corner he came to, which he recognized as one of the hallways he passed through when he entered the garden. Two Shumi came around the corner in front of him and stretched their arms out to block the hallway. "HALT!" They shouted. Quandry kicked in his boosters and ducked beneath their arms, gliding easily between them. *** Xu, who was supposed to have that night's second shift, stormed into the PHQ classroom. "What was that all about?" she demanded of Selphie. "Trust me," Selphie said. "Sam, can you bring up the picture of the Quad for Xu please?" "Not a problem." Sam turned to Xu. "Follow me?" She followed him over to his terminal and looked at what had happened to the Quad. She studied it thoughtfully for a moment, then turned back toward Selphie. "Has Quistis been notified yet?" Selphie raised an eyebrow. *** Lucus, Sara, and Lars stepped out of the elevator onto the bottom floor of the dormitory. "What should we do now?" Sara asked. "We should probably tell Selphie that Quistis wasn't in her room," said Lucus. "And then what?" She stopped and looked at Lucus. "She told us to 'go get Quistis,' and we haven't done that yet." "Yes, but do you think she wants us to waste our time wandering around, trying to find her, while there's an intruder loose in the garden?" "You heard how serious she was," Sara pointed out. "And this is Selphie we're talking about, here. Mrs. Happy-go-lucky herself. She's pretty worked up about all this. Besides, you heard over the intercom. They've probably got it under control already." Suddenly a man with bear ears riding a blue streak of lightning flew across the intersecting hallway in front of them. Lars pointed and wrinkled his nose. "What was that?" Sara yelped. "Let's check it out," Lucus said, running to the intersection and looking around the corner. "Well?" Sara asked, catching up to him with Lars. "Shh! He's stopped, and he's looking at the wall," Lucus whispered. "What's he doing?" she whispered back. Quandry looked behind him and saw that the Shumi weren't following. He then looked at the wall next to him and smiled, reaching for his paint can. "He's spraying something," said Lucus. "Spraying what?" "Let's wait until he leaves and then check it out." When Quandry was done tagging his mark, he skated off down the hall. Lucus, Sara, and Lars immediately ran out of their hiding spot and examined the wall. Lars cocked his head to the side. "It's a big Q," said Lucus. "Oh my..." Sara began thoughtfully, "This is all starting to make sense." Lucus looked at her. "He's not an intruder, he's a Treppie!" Lars wrinkled his nose again. Lucus still looked at her. "Excuse me?" "I said he's a Treppie! You know, like us!" "He's a Treppie?" "Of course! Look, put two and two together. This is Balamb garden, and he just sprayed a Q. It's gotta stand for Quistis!" At the sound of the name, Lars smiled and softly clapped his hands a few times. "Whoah, you might be right," Lucus said. "Let's trail him and see what he does." With that, the three of them marched down the hall to follow their tagging Treppie. [To be continued...] Chibi-Xu: "Tune in next time when we hear Quistis say, 'My laundry! My precious laundry!'" Chibi-Sean: [Reading the script for the next part] "She even shakes Xu's panties at Quandry!" Chibi-Xu: "WHAT!?!?!?" Chibi-Quandry: [Snatches the script] "Hey! Gimme that." Chibi-Xu: [Approaches him with 'that look'] "Quaaanndryy...." Chibi-Quandry: "Now... calm down Xu! That was taken out of context!" Chibi-Sean: [Aside to Quandry] "Might I suggest running?" Chibi-Quandry: [Kicks in his boosters] "I wish I had read Captain Cactuar right about now...!" Chibi-Sean: [Smug grin] "If you make it out of this one, I'll lend them to you!" Chibi-Xu: [Leaping after Quandry] "Those skates won't save you now, you panty-raiding painter punk!" Chibi-Quandry: [Skating away] "Hey wait! This chase scene doesn't happen until the next part!" Chibi-Xu: "Next part? Hahahahahahaha!!! I laugh! Now get back here, I have some urgent business with your duodenum." [End]