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have you got it in you?; -- squall leonhart
Topic Started: March 31, 2011, 8:53 pm (215 Views)
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It takes a lot, to be always on full - it takes a lot.


Name: Squall Leonhart. For the longest time he referred to himself solely as “Leon”, completely ashamed of himself for failing to protect his homeworld – Radiant Garden – and vowing never to use his original name again until the world had been restored to its former glory. After angsting about it and not doing for a few years, Leon begun taking an honest interest in the revival started in Traverse Town by a group of refugees like himself, and eventually with all their hard work it paid off. He began thinking of himself as Squall again, knowing that he had succeeded.

I've made the knot.
All the time, all I've got - made the knot.


Age: Squall, at this point in time, is twenty-seven years old, though he doesn’t exactly dress or act his age – he still wears the clothes he did when he was nineteen, and he acts like a grizzled war veteran. Which, in a way, he is.

It's been one of those days--
safety best unpushed. what's the hurry?


Hometown: His homeworld was Radiant Garden, though he had never been particularly attached to it until the Heartless took over and completely ransacked the place. Then, fleeing to Traverse Town, Squall realized just how much he cared for the place – and he felt pretty awful about it afterwards.

one love remaining, waiting on one look--
have you got it? have you got it in you?


Current Location: Radiant Garden, working on the restoration. They’re almost finished by this point, actually; just a few small steps to go, and everything will be back to normal. Or so he thinks.

let me have it all, let me have it,
battle on.


Fandom: Crossover (Final Fantasy VIII and Kingdom Hearts)

it's getting worse.
against all the odds, it's getting worse.


Additional Information:
      - Even though that picture up there depicts KHI Squall, it's only there because it's been made transparent already. And the art style is awesome. Right now, Mr. McDoucheypants looks more like this.

Guard's down, the floor is yours, last man standing--
can we just get it over with?


Why are they here?: Well, he's around on account of a letter. What letter? Keep reading, my friends.

blue, blue, day, make me blue.
head down, quick! take cover! they've got in the mood!


Other Characters: Lexaeus, Mr. Hanekoma, Ienzo, and Riku. I’m killing myself here.

been one of those days,
safety best unpushed.


History:
Squall Leonhart, like oh so many, started as an orphan boy in the beautiful world of Radiant Garden…

In an orphanage run by a woman by the name of Edea Kramer, Squall found his very beginnings, as a cute little kid in yellow who always seemed to be attached to someone’s limb or another. Initially, it was Edea herself, but he soon drifted away from her in favor of a much more ‘available’ companion: a young girl from the same orphanage named Rinoa. The two did everything together, and despite all evidence proving directly otherwise, he always insisted on referring to her as his sister, even going to far as to call her ‘sis’. For all those years he latched on to her, trying so hard to succeed in everything she told him to do, laughing when they played together (and strangely, no time else), trying and failing to learn how to draw her trademark angelic wings (and they were her trademark - she put them on everything), crying on her shoulders when Edea passed away… he owed much of the happiness he had back then to Rinoa and her natural ability to love.

And then she left.

Of course, Squall being the ‘impressionable’ little boy he was, nobody bothered to tell him exactly why Rinoa had to leave. Obviously, it was done hoping to save Squall from the attack: they knew our pint-sized hero was attached to Rinoa, they had made enough Crowning Moments of Heartwarming to last the world’s power supply a solid few years. And yet for all the good intentions, they ended up leaving an impression stronger than anything Rinoa’s adoption could have done.

Squall… well, he broke down.

Urged on by a number of particularly malicious inmates, Squall devised his own reasoning behind Rinoa’s departure: she had abandoned them. She had abandoned him. Thus began Squall’s downward spiral, the true consequences of which would wedge themselves firmly in his mind and not let go for a good long time. This was the breaking of Squall Leonhart, and any chances the average-looking little boy had for finding a home went straight down the wazoo. Squall wanted nobody, and nobody wanted Squall. That projected betrayal haunted him; no longer could this boy trust, for fear of being ripped away again, as he had been with Rinoa. No longer could this boy love, for fear that it would be false, along with all the love he would get in return. No longer could this boy feel, because, well, he had felt. And he hated it.

He grew up very, very fast after that.

The orphanage, under its new management, would be always haunted by a bitter shadow in the corner. It would look out from behind severely overgrown hair, and it would scowl the sort of scowl that could only be achieved by those who had truly cracked their hearts in two – and this Squall had done, though he didn’t know it. His heart was still in his body, but it was severed, rendered nearly useless and split cleanly down the middle. He was still human, but everything in his mind and spirit would try to convince him not to be, lest his heart suffer more damage and maybe even succumb to the darkness fast welling up within him. Not at all wanting this to happen, the heart put a protective shell around itself, but it also put a protective shell around the entirety of Squall – a protective, dark, scary, extremely pointy shell.

Life went on for Mr. Leonhart here, and as one could easily gather, nobody ever pointed at the dark, broken thing and said “I want that one”. He watched kids come and he watched kids come, and as the days passed, gradually, he began to hate them. So much. He hated them when they arrived, just for having the gall to wear their stupid little grins; he hated them while they stayed, for wearing their hearts on their sleeves and running happily around with the others; he hated them when they left, based solely on the fact that those idiot kids had what he didn’t. Of course, these feelings only got worse as he entered into his teenage years; it’s a small wonder that he didn’t turn into a Nobody right then and there, in that lonely place.

But he didn’t, and life continued on its dreadful and abysmal way. Squall grew up. Eventually he came of the age when the orphanage could no longer legally hold him, and by God, was he ready to leave. (That day, everyone in the orphanage woke up to find him gone without a trace; he had left midnight the night before.) Of course, Squall soon realized one critical problem with the beautiful world he projected outside of the orphanage’s four walls: he had nothing. No money, no food, no job. His body became stronger but even thinner than it had been previously, and most of his provisions were stolen from that point on. Everything he had was kept on hand, explaining the apparent fondness for belts and large pockets, and eventually, Radiant Garden had found itself a new street thief. He had sparred with the science nerd that Radiant Garden called a ‘master’ a number of times, mostly from opposing sides of a courtroom, and didn’t hold a very high opinion of him or any of his ‘lackeys’, a number of which he had met on his own; Aeleus and Dilan were idiots, Braig was a smartass who was going to get shot down someday, Even had the largest ego this side of the world barrier, Xehanort was practically composed of trouble, and he could never seem to get rid of the incredible urge to punch Ienzo in the face.

And then worst came to worst, and Radiant Garden was eaten up. For once truly terrified and unable to fight back against the black, wispy menace, Squall stowed away on a gummicraft he knew was around, and wound up in a place with many names: the World for the Lonely, Where the Lost Ones Go, Scrappy Heap. Traverse Town was all of these things – it made a home for those without one. It was by no defintions a nice home (it gave off more of a “I can’t help you, but I can help you help yourself” vibe than anything else, actually), but good lord, did it do some good for the broken man. However, that came later; first he had to get himself acquaintanced with the numerous holes that had suddenly popped up in his memory. Though he had been traveling by Gummicraft, the darkness inside of him and the darkness sitting right outside the ship were in such close proximity to one another that they slowly started to eat at Leon. Fortunately he wasn’t consumed completely (the darkness had to eat the mind before it could eat the heart), but there were still a number of blanks in his mental timeline – such as who Rinoa was, and how she left. He forgot the girl herself, but he never forgot the after-effects that she left upon him. This didn’t sound like good news, and it wasn’t – but it was just another black spot in the tragedy conga-line called the life of Squall.

…Actually, he wasn’t named Squall. Nope. Actually, right at that point in time, he called himself Leon.

Utterly ashamed in himself for… just about everything, not the least of which being his sudden laser-guided amnesia, Squall went into total breakdown mode. He was only just barely on the brighter side of the Somebody-Nobody spectrum, and dancing mournfully on the edge of it. He saw now that he wasn’t Squall anymore – he was some other dark entity, who couldn’t even be called Squall anymore. He had mutated, and he knew it, and he gave that mutation a name: Leon.

However, all was not lost.

Squall ran across a wanderer one of those days. He was originally attracted by the man’s weapon – a strange combination of a revolver and a sword, the sort of thing that looked like it could do an awful lot of damage to an awful lot of things. And of course, Squall wanted it. He had originally sneaked up, intending to simply snatch the weapon while the owner had it lying on a wooden bench next to him, but even before he could reach out his hand Squall felt the sensation of something metallic and distinctly dangerous hovering a couple of centimeters from his throat. Instead of pushing those last few centimeters, though, the owner turned to him with a confusing little grin and said, “Did you want this?”

Squall had scowled back at him.

“You wanted this, didn’t you?” They had attracted attention now, and Squall didn’t like that, but even so, he had been cornered.

“…Yes.”

The man stood up and turned to him entirely. The two stared one another down, and finally, the traveler said to the ragged man, “You know what, boy? I like you. You’ve got drive, you do. Here, let me tell you something…” He stepped closer and slung an arm around Squall’s shoulder, like the two were old friends. Squall reacted very much like a frightened deer, but that gunblade was holding him still. “…I’m going to croak,” the traveler muttered. “Soon. Anyone can see that.”

Well… he wasn’t the youngest of gentlemen, but he didn’t look like he was going to die. Even so, Squall didn’t complain, once again fascinated by the gunblade. “Train under me, kiddo. If you got what it takes, look. When I die, this weapon is all yours.” Take a wild guess at what Squall did next. Yes, he accepted the offer, but soon found that the gunblade’s old master was a harsh one; not too far after training began, Squall had successfully obtained the trademark scar across the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t all too happy with his mentor after that bout, understandably, but he stuck with it. A few years later, the traveler was dead, and Squall could man that Gunblade like an expert.

Time continued as it did after that, but one critical light did shine in the perpetual darkness of Squall’s life: that light came in the handy, portable form of a small clique of people. They went by Yuffie, Aerith, and Cid, and they had all escaped the crumbling Radiant Garden just as he had. However, instead of moping around stealing things for a living, they had all found one another and decided to play hero by working on a plan to restore Radiant Garden to its former splendor.

After telling their numerous life’s stories, all tying in to the creation of the group itself, they asked if Squall too had been a citizen of the Garden once. He answered yes, but grudgingly and after much prodding (literally). The soft-spoken Aerith then proposed the best news he’d heard in years: they wanted him to join up with them, and help them rebuild Radiant Garden. Seeing this as a method of atonement for his shameful escape plans, Squall (or Leon, as they still knew him as) agreed and became a member. He was quickly nominated to be the brawns of the operation when Cid was too busy tinkering (which was often), and as the plans went up, he gradually – gradually – began to accustom himself with the idea of living with this strange bunch under one roof. It didn’t come easy, but eventually, after even more prodding, Yuffie convinced him to spill his guts to the remainder of the group. He wasn’t surprised to feel the silence in the room afterward; that always happened, and while before he had used the shellshock as an excuse to swipe their wallets, this time he was actually forced to listen to it.

It wasn’t a nice silence.

Everyone got over that, however, and made a sort of vow that Squall could never forget: they all vowed not only to fix Radiant Garden, they also made a pledge to, if not heal Squall’s heart completely, at least patch it up with their presence. It was a unanimous agreement among Yuffie, Cid, and Aerith, and after much hesitation (and of course prodding) Squall shakily agreed. Oh, he had known about them before – there had of course been tales of a trio of strange Radiant Garden refugees babbling on about some resistance or another. Squall hadn’t previously bothered, but that was because he hadn’t previously known them personally.

One day, a number of years later, Leon ran across a strange young man named Sora holding a Keyblade and batting amateurishly at Heartless without even knowing what they were. Seeing the relevance of this, Sora noticed Squall at last, and Squall challenged him to a fight. After that little skirmish they both returned to the resistance hideout (i.e., a handy motel room) quite banged up. However, Squall soon got down to business, and laid out what had happened with the Heartless for Sora. Soon after he finished his explanation, a couple of anthropomorphic animals arrived on behalf of King Mickey. Seeing that their escort had arrived, Squall left Sora to go on his merry way.

Of course, his merry way just needed to lead directly back to Squall. He popped up again soon after, asking Squall to please explain about all that strange ‘Keyhole’ hooblah, which Squall did. He also forked up one of his stolen crystals, a nice Earthshine Gem, because he figured it would give Sora good luck. (Which it didn’t. Everyone knows that stolen gifts bring bad luck, not good luck, which may explain the crapola that happened later on in Sora’s quest.) Then they return to the new hideout, a bigger but more Heartless-infested house, and explain to Sora about Maleficent and Ansem (who he still has a distaste for, mind you, but is better at hiding it now). And then they pushed Sora off into the world once again, chillin’ out, havin’ fun, slayin’ demons and so on.

Later, however, things got that much darker. Squall and company actually went out in Cid’s gummiship in order to speak with Sora before he was to lock the Keyhole of Hollow Bastion, bearing quite a bit of bad news – Squall, being the resident deity of bad news himself, was of course the one to deliver it. Once the whole world mess was over… well, they’d never see one another again. Ever. So like the considerate bunch of friends they were, everyone decided to go out and speak to Sora in person, and this they did. After the news was explained, Sora stood there staring at them all until he was called off to seal the Keyhole. Their words said, all Squall and the others could do was stand and stare. In traditional Squall fashion, Squall stayed around a few seconds after the others had returned to the gummiship.

He saluted the boy and turned around to follow his comrades.



Time passed.

When Sora came around again, things were looking quite different for Squall – for one thing, he had gotten a much nicer modification for his jacket. (It had collar fur now, see. Everyone around tended to comment that it looked more natural on him…) Aside from that extremely important difference, he was also back in his homeworld of Radiant Garden. Intent on not making it the extraordinarily two-faced world he knew in his youth, Squall was working hard with everyone else to raise it to an even better position than it had been previously. He was actually one of the most dedicated of the lot, leading him to be agreed the new leader of the little group. (Previously, it hadn’t exactly had one, though Cid – being the most knowledgeable and willing to take the position – had previously served as a sort of unofficial head.) He also had collected the Gullwings as companions, after Donald’s claim that he had loads of treasure – and he did, in a way, but those long-stolen goods had been long locked away. No matter how hard the Gullwings asked him to let them see it, he would always sturdily refuse.

Eventually, however, he and the rest of the Committee were asked to bring out their battle skills once again, as they were quickly on the scene of the rather hellish Battle of the Thousand Heartless in the gully near Hollow Bastion. Though Sora had shown some exceptional spawnmowing skills, none of the others’ body counts were to be sneezed at, and along with his fellow spike-haired swordsman Cloud, Squall successfully kicked quite a bit of ass that day. They had been focusing more on their own attacks than the exploits of Sora, but were relieved to find that he had somehow survived the final battle and was making his escape.

However, the Heartless threat didn’t stop there – later, the Heartless from Space Paranoids came running right over to Hollow Bastion. While Sora was there again to run off into the digital world (heh heh) to deal with the problem in his own special way, Squall was sent out to find Cid’s special program, the Eradicator Program, designed to pull the plug on the excessively problematic Master Control Program once and for all. Like any anti-hero worth his salt, Squall came through, and with that difficulty out of the way, the digital man Tron was able to do them all a favor: reveal the old name of the world to them, where before it had been concealed by a combination of memory and stubborn darkness.

Radiant Garden was back.

The restoration continued on its merry way. After much toiling of various kinds, they came to the point they were at now: there were just a few tiny, tiny steps to go before the place was well and truly back. However, Squall was far from able to finally put up his feet for the day – no, there was something much more important to be had, more important than the Battle of the Thousand Heartless, or the rebuilding of Radiant Garden, or indeed anything that had happened since he had stowed away on Cid’s ship so many years ago.

It was the letter. Good Lord, the letter.

He was staying in Merlin’s house at the time. Radiant Garden had been restored and Sora had brought balance upon the world at large, and Squall’s group – the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee – were well on their way to bringing life to Radiant Garden once again (by all measures they had completely succeeded, but Squall being Squall he wasn’t about to accept that as an answer). Then one day, Yuffie had arrived on the scene, bearing letters for all of them. Everyone gave off various exclamations of surprise as they saw who their letters came from, but Leon wasn’t so lucky; his letter didn’t have a name.

Instead, it had tearstains, shaky handwriting, and this.

“Squall:

I searched for you all over the worlds, you know, and I never found you. If you’re getting this letter… well, then something has happened to me. I’ve been taken by the Heartless. Or the Nobodies, maybe. Same thing. It happens to everyone. But please, don’t be sad for my sake. I have found out about what you’re doing, and though I can’t see you in person… I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud of you, Squall, and I want you to please continue on whatever quest you take part in. Rebuild our world, destroy the Heartless once and for all… anything you do, please do it.

I think that you will know me by this letter.



P.S.: I send my heart out to you, Squall. I love you.”

Now, there were a number of things that confused Squall about this letter.

For one thing: that someone loved him. Um, okay, someone loved him? Who, though? Except for the people in this room, he didn’t think anyone remembered him at all, and none of them would bother to write a letter like this. And then there was the bit about being taken by the Heartless… taken by the Heartless? An awful fate, to be sure, and Squall had been dedicated to squashing that particular bug from the get-go. So why was someone – who presumably knew what he was doing, another funny thing about this letter – being taken by the Heartless, with her dying wish being sending a letter to him? That did not make him happy, just the fact that someone had died for this letter to be mailed. And then, besides that, there was the fact that this letter was wet. Wet! And besides, it looked like the person involved had some kind of quivering-hand disorder. He could hardly read the words, they were so garbled. And the postscript? What was that supposed to…

…light.

There was light. Coming from. The letter.

It was a little pink ball of light, he could see that, with two rounded prongs coming up from the center. Big ones, too. And by the looks of things, there were two more little bits there, floating angel wings that… wait… wings.

Wings.

…Wings?!?

Squall looked back down at the letter and read it over again, now much more frantically, trying to make the pieces click into place. She searched for him… so that meant she lived… thank heavens. Taken by the Heartless… no! That… that couldn’t be! She couldn’t be harmed! She was… she was… …ugh. He had to continue reading. She found out somehow, she found out, she knows, it’s coming back… and she’s proud of him… she remembered. Him. Amazing. But that fit, and, and so did the next part, rebuild their world. They were in the same world, they were. Both born and raised. And she had always told him that he needed to do something with himself, hadn’t she? She had! And… and… oh. Squall read the last lines again, almost not wanting to.

“I send my heart out to you, Squall. I love you.”

Well… this was certainly a double-slap for Squall. She… loved him. He hadn’t considered that. Damn. She loved him? But they hadn’t seen each other in years… she shouldn’t remember him! At all!

After that initial shock ran out, he went and read the previous line. And again. And again.

She sent her heart to him. Well, yes, she’d already done that, but still… there was something about it that just didn’t… ugh. Squall looked up, wondering what to make of this, and found his eyes drawn to the little pink glowing object, with its characteristic angel wings. And then he understood. She had meant it… she had meant it. Squall looked down again, now shaking slightly himself.

Rinoa had sent her heart to him.

Damn.

one love remaining, waiting on one look.
have you got it?


Right Now: The Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee has run its course. The letter has been received. And now… and now, what was Squall going to do? Well, he was going to play avenger, that’s what he was going to do, traveling to all manner of worlds within his own personal gummicraft, the G. S. Revolver. And... he was going to kill the Heartless. He could kill them now, yes! It pleased him quite a bit, in a sick, familiar, old kind of way, that he could actually do something about those menaces. He had the power, and dammit, he was going to use it.

It was a gift, after all. A very special gift.






have you got it in you?
+ quote! + top!
 
Sora
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a hero's not afraid to give his life
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Because Squall totally has one.

/accepted
+ quote! + top!
 
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