The Odds Are In [3] (FFVIII, PG)

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The Odds Are In, Chapter 3

Fandom: FFVIII
Characters: Quistis, Irvine, Laguna (Kiros, Ward, Ellone)
Rating: PG-13 as a whole (this? PG)

Summary: Squall sends Quistis and Irvine on a mission to Esthar, in the midst of political (and familial) unrest. Will they end up facing down the terrorists they suspect are behind Esthar's current political uprisings? Or is Laguna paying millions of gil for two very skilled Triple Triad partners?

Notes: This is a total piece of comfort-writing, after the hellish fuckjob (okay, PG) that March has been. Somewhat inspired by the shenanigans at lunaticdiscord, but also simply somewhat an excuse for me to write some fun characters that come easily to catch up almost 10,000 words on getyourwordsout.

The Odds Are In will be a series of connected ficlets / scenes / vignettes / pieces. Some will have plot, some will just be scenes. This month's goal: WORDS. The tag for this series is here.

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radio message from hq / dance commander, we love you

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She spotted Laguna out of the window before the train even came to a complete stop: he was hard to miss, fidgeting like he was, shaking the knots and cramps out of his legs with the world's strangest-looking dance. He was holding--

"Are those flowers?" Irvine murmured, next to her. "Quistis, are you having a sordid affair with Squall's dad?"

Quistis shrugged. "For all I know, Irvine, those flowers are for you."

Irvine batted his lashes. "I did call ahead and tell him to make reservations."

Quistis gave a half-hearted laugh, but said nothing. Had Laguna actually come to the station alone? The man was going to get himself assassinated before she and Irvine even got off the train. No wonder Squall was so concerned about this --no, wait, there; back behind the crowd stood a few men in a uniform she recognized from the Palace. They were a little too far away for her tastes, but Quistis was relieved to see Laguna had come with some sort of protection.

She and Irvine gathered their duffels and disembarked. Laguna's face lit up in a grin when he saw them -- but then fell, disappointed, as he scanned the crowd behind them. Then he smiled again, a somewhat determined grin, and headed across the platform to greet them with a handshake.

"Mister President," Quistis said with a nod. She couldn't help but ask: "Are you looking for someone else?"

Laguna sighed, and shook his head. "I guess he didn't come, did he? Squall. I asked for him specifically."

Quistis and Irvine exchanged a curious glance. That hadn't been mentioned in any of the paperwork they'd studied on the way here. "I'm sorry," Quistis said. "Squall doesn't go on missions much, anymore."

"I know." Laguna's shoulders sagged momentarily. "That's why I asked for him to come. I said I'd pay extra, and in advance -- I was hoping it would be like a vacation, or something..."

Quistis drew herself upright. "With all due respect, sir," she said carefully, "we're here for a mission, not a vacation."

"Oh, I know," Laguna said, nodding in complete understanding. "I was just hoping he'd come... too."

The look Irvine gave Quistis was one part confused and one part amused. "Well, hey, let's get going," Irvine offered. "And you can tell us about this mission."

"Right!" Laguna brightened. "A debriefing!" He grinned, and reached for Quistis' duffel bag. A small scuffle ensued as Quistis tightened her grip on the bag, insisting she was perfectly capable of carrying it. Laguna tugged. Quistis relented.

They made their way out of the train station to the funny-looking transport marked with the President's seal. Laguna tossed their bags into the back (Quistis winced) and crawled into the transport eagerly, waving them in. Irvine had to duck as he entered.

"They've already cleaned off the track," Laguna said as they settled in for the ride. He set the flowers down beside him. "We should get there without any problems."

"Cleaned?" Quistis asked. "Problems?"

"Lunar Cry monsters are still here." Laguna shrugged, watching out the window. "We're still working on cleaning out the city. There's a curfew in effect, you'll see, and most of the stores have rent-a-guards when they're open." He shrugged again. "It's not that bad. Sometimes I can get out of the Palace and actually fight a few."

Irvine chuckled at the somewhat horrified look which momentarily crossed Quistis' face. "You realize if you go now, you'll have to take one of us, right?"

"Hey, that would be awesome!" Laguna turned back from the window, grinning. "We could go kick some monster ass!"

Irvine saw the horrified look flicker across Quistis' face again and said, hastily, "Maybe after some of this other stuff dies down."

"But you could help us!" Laguna said. "We could finally get the Cry out of the city for sure!"

"Laguna," Quistis began, her voice deliberately calm, "there's nothing about the Lunar Cry monsters in our mission statement." She paused, a strange thought occuring to her. "Have you seen the contract yet?"

Laguna waved his hand airily. "I know what it says. You guys just have to keep me safe. It's alright," he added, "the monsters aren't all that hard to beat up."

"That isn't the point," Quistis said, resisting the urge to rub her temples in frustration. "We're supposed to lower the danger of your current situation, not raise it."

Laguna frowned, looking confused. "Nobody's going to attack me if I'm surrounded by SeeD and Lunar Cry monsters," he pointed out. He fidgeted a little, picking up the flowers and then setting them back down.

"The monsters will." Quistis held back a sigh. "Laguna, I'm sorry, but throwing you into the middle of a battle is not, in fact, the best way to ensure your safety."

"It's alright," Irvine offered helpfully. "We're not that boring."

The car pulled up in front of the Presidential Palace. Laguna jumped out and grabbed Quistis' duffel (leaving the second bag for Irvine) and headed inside; Quistis and Irvine followed. In the lobby, a man in uniform was waiting with a luggage cart.

"Here," Laguna said cheerfully, handing over Quistis' duffel and gesturing to Irvine. "Go ahead and take it up to the room. You guys, come with me. It's debriefing time!"

They followed Laguna through a maze of hallways -- Quistis made a mental note to memorize the layout of this place as soon as possible -- and up a staircase, into a small room. Laguna opened the door with a flourish, holding out the flowers nobly.

"Laguna," Kiros said, a weary tone in his voice, "thanks but no thanks."

"Hey!" Laguna jerked the flowers back to his chest. "These aren't for you! Where is she?"

"I'm in here, Uncle Laguna." Ellone's soft, familiar voice. "Did you find them?"

Laguna jumped into the room, holding the flowers out in front of him almost like a weapon. "Elle! These are for you! Quistis and Irvine are here, and we're ready to start!"

Bemusedly, Quistis and Irvine entered the room, nodding a polite hello to Kiros and Ward, who stood by the door. Inside the room was a long table, covered with dishes full of food and snacks. At the end of the table, Ellone stood up, coming forward to give them both a brief hug.

"It's good to see you," she said. "I'm glad you could come."

Quistis and Irvine exchanged another funny look. Was this a vacation or a mission?

"Help yourselves," Laguna said, beaming. "I ordered all kinds of stuff. You can have it all!"

"We'll be eating all day," Irvine murmured, and Quistis bit back a snort. They both diligently took a plate, and made their selections from the buffet in front of them. Irvine took a seat next to Ellone, and Quistis sat to his left. As they sat, Laguna stood.

He gestured at Kiros, who took a small remote control out of his pocket and pressed a button. A projector descended from the ceiling, and the lights dimmed as it lowered. Kiros pressed another button, and the projector focused on the opposite wall; a map of the Presidential Palace appeared.

"I figured we could just talk while you eat," Laguna said. "That okay?"

Quistis nodded; Irvine swallowed, and said rather stickily, "Fine with me."

"Alright!" Laguna threw himself into a chair. "So this is the Palace. That big green room there is where I sleep. Across from it, see that thing in blue?, that's the guest suite. We're gonna have you two stay in there." He glanced at Kiros, who pressed a button on his remote. A series of bright yellow markers appeared on the map.

Laguna paused, frowning slightly. "Kiros," he said, "Where's the -- the thingey?" He held out a fist, waggling his thumb up and down and moving his hand in a lopsided circle. Quistis and Irvine watched this odd pantomime curiously; Kiros simply sighed.

"Your laser pointer," Kiros said patiently, "has been missing for a week."

Ward reached into the pocket of his shirt and took something out, handing it to Laguna, who took it eagerly and broke out in a grin. It was shaped like a pen, and when Laguna pointed it at the screen, a tiny blue dot appeared, wiggling on the wall as Laguna tried to write his name.

"Oh, Uncle Laguna," Ellone said, sounding embarrassed. "You gave me your laser pointer a week ago. You told me it was a toy for Griever!"

Laguna flushed. "He liked chasing it so much," he mumbled.

Kiros pulled a small handheld out of his own pocket and touched it in a few places, carefully. He sighed. "And thus we solve the mystery of the stolen laser pointer. Let's continue, Laguna."

"Right!" said the President. He pointed out three of the yellow spots with the laser, moving in a triangle between the three. "Those circles are places where we caught trespassers. Since we caught 'em before they got too far, we can't necessarily say that they were sneaking in for some kind of ninja assassin attack, or if it was just kids on a dare." Kiros' low snort let both Quistis and Irvine know which theory he favored. "But you'll notice how far away they are from each other. Looking back, I think people were scouting our perimeter!" He sounded so excited. Kiros looked pained.

"And this one," Laguna said, circling a yellow spot directly over the front entrance, "is where they tried to storm the castle. Check this out." He looked pointedly at Kiros, who pressed a the button on the remote again. The main yellow spot turned bright orange, and a series of smaller orange markers appeared on the map. Quistis quickly realized they were marking windows, doors, emergency exits...

"A siege," she said softly.

"Yeah!" The blue laser flew around the map as Laguna gestured hastily at the orange markers. "We went back and checked the video feeds. There were people everywhere! Little itty bitty teams, waiting at every window and every door." He sent the blue dot back to the first marker at the front door, circling it a few times for emphasis. "Luckily for us, we have guards and alarms at the door. When we fought them off, somebody must have signaled for a retreat, cause all the people just left all of a sudden."

Laguna nodded, and Kiros advanced the slide again. All of the markers on the map disappeared except for three yellow dots. Two were in Laguna's room; the third was just down the hall.

"Those are where people tried to shoot me," Laguna said; his voice now sounded forcibly cheerful. The laser pointed at a spot in his room. "The first one, they threw some crap through the window. It scared the shit out of me, but that was a good thing, because it woke me up fast enough to run. The second time, I was writing a letter, and somebody tried to snipe me." he paused, letting the laser sag as his face grew carefully blank. "The guards caught that one in time, thankfully."

The mood in the room grew even more tense as he pointed to the last one. "That's Ellie's room. I guess we don't even know whether they were aiming for her, or me. Lucky for us that Griever likes to play with lasers, or else we might never have noticed." Laguna rubbed the side of his face absently, and Quistis noticed the faint lines down the side of his cheek, which could have come from a cat's claws. "We managed to get out of the line of sight and make a run for it, but still." He glanced at Ellone, who looked down at her hands in her lap. "That one was too close."

"When was this?" Quistis asked; Squall had only mentioned two assassination attempts, and he hadn't mentioned Ellone at all...

"Last night," Kiros said. "And it was different. Different room, different kind of gun. Based on the bullets we found, it wasn't even a real sniper rifle, just some generic back-alley piece of crap with a laser scope attached. Even if they'd gotten a good shot in, it might not have worked."

Irvine set down his fork. "You think somebody knew we were comin'? Tried to get in one last hit before SeeD showed up?"

Kiros shrugged. "Could be. We haven't exactly been shy about this particular contract. Laguna's supporters have been demanding for a long time that he take an actual bodyguard. When we announced we'd hired SeeD for the job, it helped calm down that entire faction. It's not exactly a secret." He spread his hands.

Quistis examined the map of the Presidential Palace, working things out in her mind. "How's security around here?" she asked.

"Much better now," Kiros said with a snort. "We didn't really have any reason to change anything, before, but believe me, we're patching up the holes now." Across the room, Ward nodded vigorously, thumping a fist to his chest in an obvious gesture of pride.

"I can't even go outside anymore without a guard or two," Laguna said mournfully.

Quistis tactfully said nothing, chewing on her lip instead of speaking. Irvine glanced at her, clearly surprised at her self-restraint, and then said cautiously: "So how do we fit in?"

"It's up to you," Kiros said. "Whatever you think is best. We hired SeeD for their guidance as well as their skill, y'know."

"Right." Quistis looked at Laguna. "I think the best place for us to start is simply by gathering more information. We'll spend a week following Laguna -- getting used to his habits and his schedule, that kind of thing. From there, we should have a much better idea of where the holes are, and which ones can be plugged by Estharian soldiers."

"Hmm." Laguna twisted his lips into an awkward shape. "And what about the, uh, the second part of the mission?"

Quistis tapped her finger to her lips, thinking. "That's not the kind of thing we can move on right away," she said slowly. "Especially if we haven't secured your safety yet. If we make a bold move, we could send any actual terrorists into hiding. Once we have the safety net in place, Irvine and I can split up and start looking into the political side. We'll probably need another briefing on that." She glanced at Irvine, questioning.

Irvine nodded in approval. "We gotta know what we're looking for before we start looking."

Laguna sighed. "So I'm stuck doing boring stuff for now, then, huh?"

Quistis shook her head. "Quite the contrary. What we want is for you to stick to your normal schedule, so that we can figure out the best way to protect you with the least disruption to your daily responsibilities."

"It does, however, mean that you can't run off doing dumbshit stuff for a while now," Kiros warned. Laguna had the good grace to look chastized, at least.

Quistis covered her laugh with her fingertips. "At least until we get some basics in place, sir."

Laguna smiled at her. "It's cool. Alright, are you two done? Let's go play Get Lost in the Corridor. It's the only way to learn your way around this place."

Irvine glanced at Quistis; they both shrugged, simultaneously, and stood up.