The Calm Before The Storm
Written by Silver_Sailor_Pluto9.

This is all based before the opening sequence in Final Fantasy VIII, before the training session that turns bad with Seifer.



Squall Leonhart awoke to a dim, dreary morning. He stood, looking outside his window, hoping to see a ray of sunlight peek from behind the clouds. He just stood, watching and wondering, what was beyond those clouds. He quickly came back to reality and gazed over to the clock. He gasped, just realizing what time it was. 'Instructor Trepe is going to KILL me!' he thought, throwing on some clothes and running his fingers through his hair. He grabbed his gunblade, and ran to the elevator. Much to his dismay, however, he ran into Headmaster Cid while rushing to the elevator.

"Well, where are we going in such a hurry?'" Cid snapped, with a taunting tone to his slightly hoarse voice.

'He must not be a morning person, either' Squall thought, noticing the flaw in his usually cheery voice.

"Instructor Trepe's class, sir," he answered quietly, not daring to look up at the obviously stressed headmaster. He didn't want to get on anybody's wrong side this morning.

"Oh, well. Carry on then," he said, surprisingly.

Somewhat eager to get away from the headmaster and towards Trepe's class, Squall tore away from Cid's glance and ran to the elevator like someone cast Mad Rush on him. Just before the elevator doors shut, Squall saw a boy that looked slightly younger than Squall. He had blonde, spiky hair and was scarfing down his breakfast as fast as it could possibly go down. He rushed to the elevator before he had to wait another five minutes. Squall, being the nice person that he was at the time, held the doors open for him.

"...hanks," the guy said, with half his breakfast in his mouth.



"....."

"So,' the boy said after he had swallowed the mass in his mouth, 'late for Instructor Trepe's class?"

"...Yes.." Squall said, wondering why make conversation with a person he didn't even know. The elevator doors opened before the boy got a chance to say his name and Squall briskly walked into Trepe's class. Squall walked in, seemingly unnoticed by most, but a few eyes wandered from their computers to see who was at the door. Instructor Trepe wasn't one of them. She was leaning over her desk, doing some paperwork. Squall took advantage of this opportunity and slipped into his seat, feeling satisfied that Quistis didn't notice.

"Nice of you to finally come to class, Mr. Leonheart" Quistis said without even glancing up. He silently swore at himself for waking up too late. He had to take what was coming to him.

"Oh, yes. You finally noticed that my beautiful face was missing from the crowd," he said, leaning back in his seat. He looked around. A few snickers came from some group of guys at the front and a few girls glowed a rosy red. This time, Quistis WAS one of those few.

"Are you quite finished? Hmmm..Back to the subject on hand, after I was so rudely interrupted. Today will be the first day of training to become a SeeD. You will each have a sparring partner, but only one, so don't seriously injure them at all costs," for some odd reason, she was directing the last sentence at Seifer Almasy, Squall's archenemy. Then she started pairing off people. Soon the seats were empty and only Seifer and Squall were left.

"Ah. Looks like you two will be fighting partners," she said with a strange look in her eye, like she meant to pair them up.

"Instructor.." Seifer started to protest, but was quickly intercepted by Quistis

" Can I have a new partner," she finished Seifer's sentence for him, "and, no. You two are the only two left." she turned around to face the rest of the class. "Now, everyone should fight fairly. Come back to the classroom when you are done fighting. Dismissed," she said, shooing them away with a wave of her hand.

Squall roughly grabbed his gunblade and followed Seifer to the arena where they would be fighting. Grasping his gunblade tightly, they entered the arena. Squall looked up at the sky, and it was even darker than before. Dark days were bad days for Squall. Everything seemed to go wrong. After, Squall snapped out of his trance, the match quickly began. Seifer came at Squall, his gunblade raised, and brought it down. Squall reacted quickly, however and was able to dodge the attack. They fought around the entire area, gunblade meeting gunblade the entire way. After that ended, Seifer and Squall were at opposite ends of the arena. Seifer motioned for Squall to come forward. Squall ran after him, arm extended. Before Squall was halfway where Seifer was, Seifer cast a fire attack that made Squall fly back. Squall got up and quickly grabbed his gunblade, but Seifer intercepted him and gave him a devastating sword slash to the face. Squall became outraged and went after Seifer. Through blurred vision, Squall gave Seifer a similar slash, before he fell to the ground in exhaustion. The last thing that Squall saw before he was out completely was Seifer, doubled over with pain. Now aware that he was hurt badly, Squall was wondering. 'I'm never going to forgive Seifer for this' he thought, as the world went black.