Then, at last, with a thundering crash, it was finished. A gloomy pall of dust settled over the University. The change had been accomplished.
Advent Children had arrived.
Dana jumped to her feet, nearly banging her head on the desk lamp as she was startled out of her doze. "What the hell was that?" she yelped, peeling the first page of her Extreme Overpowers paper off of her face with one trembling hand. The walls had ceased to vibrate, but the trinkets on the shelves and Maggie's collection of risque pottery were still clattering in the aftershocks. Five weeks' accumulation of dirty laundry had shifted, too, so that when she tried to stumble from the desk over to the door, Dana found herself ensnared by a heavy deposit of fossilized jeans that had last been lurking under the shoe rack in the closet.
Finally freeing herself from the coils of the jeans (which were still shifting around suspiciously, and eyeing their owner with glowing red buttonholes) Dana managed to lurch her way to the door and fling it open. The hallway was filled with babbling students, all shouting and shoving and generally causing chaos; what looked like a tentacled red blur sped past, followed by half-a-dozen Moogles and Neo-Bahamuts brandishing numerous spiky weaponry. Dana rubbed her eyes in disbelief- not since the Great Cecil Stalk of September 9th had she seen so many minis out in force. And what was that red thing, anyway?
"Hey, Tarragon!" she yelled. TarragonTitian, a Rude luster to the extent that she wore Hugo Boss everywhere (including the shower) skidded to a halt. She was panting and out of breath, and her sunglasses were askew. "What the hell happened?" Dana demanded.
"I don't know?" TT gasped. "I was in the library, looking up that stuff for the Black Mage's class, and all of a sudden BOOM! There's a whole bunch of Moogles around, but I don't think they're chasing students- they're just sort of running-"
"Moogles running- and they're not chasing students?" Dana said, utterly mystified. "That's new. Let's go have a look, huh?"
TT stared at her. "Are you friggin' insane?" she yelped. "The walls just stopped shaking!"
"I got threatened with a detention from Gogo, but his TAs never showed up. I asked Vincent and Shadow a question and I didn't get attacked. It's been a good day so far," Dana said boldly, clamping down on the remnants of her common sense, which squealed pitifully. "If anyone's going to check this out, might as well be me, right?"
"Suit yourself!" TT said, ducking past her into the room. "I'll be in the closet!"
"You'll have to ask Norbert and Maggie to move over, then."
"No, I won't. There's still plenty of room in the laundry hamper."
* * *
Out in the main hallways of the University, the chaos was even worse. Dana dodged falling bricks, scrambled around the hordes of panicking students, and once had to dive behind a bookcase in the Evil! Evil! I'm Beside Myself with Evil! classroom to avoid what looked like a mobile clawfoot bathtub in black leather boots. The seismic tremors had stopped, but the whole complex was still suffused with the weird pale-green light that Dana had learned to associate with the Lifestream. Barging past Anita, who was lying on the floor clutching her Zell plushie and hyperventilating, Dana managed to make it to the Main Hall, where all the different corridors met by the front doors of the main university building.
It was full of people. Dana blinked, somewhat mystified- not badly-rendered FFVII lusters, not Moogles, not pixelated chocobos or the occasional be-bathing-suited Shiva. People. Real, living people, many of them well over six feet tall.
She blinked again. The nearest three people were wearing suits- no, wait, there were four of them now. They all seemed extraordinarily excited about something; two of them, one a blonde and the other a redhead, were enthusiastically attacking their newly-appeared fourth member, who looked a little surprised but wasn't particularly resistant. The last member of the group, a muscular bald man, had his arms crossed. A little " . . . " was hovering over his head.
Hey . . . wait a minute . . .
Dana couldn't suppress a yelp of pure surprise. "TURKS!" She squealed. "Oh my gawd, it's YOU! TSENG! YOO-HOO! TSENGIE!"
All four people froze. Around them, the chattering throngs stopped like broken clockwork, pivoting slowly in place to face the infatuated fangirl. Too late, Dana remembered where she was. " . . .oops . . . " she whispered, stuffing a fist into her mouth. Too late again- far, far too late. There was a soft noise behind her, and three glowering Moogles padded into position, each bearing some form of gun. A Neo-Bahamut dropped to the floor in front of her with a Kalashnikov.
"Wait a moment!" A voice called. Dana meeped and cowered against the polished metal wall, but at the command, the minis had growled and reluctantly backed off. The fangirl allowed herself one shred of cautious hope: wasn't she going to be mauled?
Back to the Campus? On to Part 2 -->