"Such a little man could not have made so big a
depression."
-Norman Thomas
FF8 FanFic: PuPu’s Saga
by Jeremy Chapter
"I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move."
-Tennyson, Alfred, Lord
Ulysses 18
Dramatis Persona Hominis
Laguna
Raine
Kiros
Ward
Ellone
Cid
Edea
Squall
Rinoa
Quistis
Irvine
Selphie
Seifer
Fujin
Rajin
Jeremy
Red Line
Merali
Dante
Pearl
Mina
Eris
Caraway
Julia
Author's Extended Foreword:
Everything belongs to Squaresoft, Inc., not to me, unless I made
it up.
This fanfiction picks up right where the game ends. If it
interferes time-wise with any other fanfic, just treat the
celebration at the beginning of the story as some other party that
Balamb Garden throws after Squall goes through Time Compression again
to kill some other sorceress named Ultimecia during which Rinoa
kisses Squall one more time because they both see another shooting
star, and during which Laguna, Ward, Kiros, and Ellone all just
happen to be in Winhill visiting Raine's grave a second time. If you
know already who Laguna’s son is, then Setting 1 is not essential to
the plot and can be skipped. This fanfic has many allusions to Final
Fantasy 8 and 9, some of which are pretty profound. Those that have
not explored the world of Final Fantasy 8 as thoroughly as others
might miss some subtle clues while those that have explored the world
too thoroughly can guess half the plot out right. Stuff that I made
up wasn’t meant to be corny, corny as it might be. It is also a
tedious reading until the tempo picks up in Setting 11 or so.
Skipping to Setting 11 would ruin many of the hints incorporated into
every Setting. Setting 8 was especially long and tedious (10 and 15
even more so), and I’m sorry for having ever written them. If you can
get through that, I salute you. I don’t promise the perfect story,
but I’m warning you how big a commitment you have to make to finish
this beast. It focuses mainly on Squall, his regular groups (minus
Rinoa), and two new characters, Merali and Red Line. I tried to keep
the number of Settings focused on characters from the older
generation and Seifer to a minimum. Dante, Jeremy, Pearl, and Mina
are other additions I’ve taken the liberty to make. Raine Ishida
(nanaki_17@hotmail.com) has a sequel to my saga and the idea of Mina
belongs to her. The idea of Titanus belongs to Dark Horse
(sniper_3d@yahoo.com). The idea of Stella, Laura, and Shojora belong
to Kate Lorraine (lorraine_kate@hotmail.com). The idea of Eris
belongs to Blackrose (lenoirrose@softhome.net).
I realized that the length of this 65-Setting story (520+
single-spaced pages) would deter most fans from reading it, while
even fewer would ever finish reading. In order to boost the interest
and preserve the incentive to keep reading, I’ve begged the
assistance of eighteen very talented artists to whom I shall give due
and grateful credit for their pieces for each chapter. I tried a
little humor in each Setting with the characters. Please excuse me if
what they say is not what you would have liked to hear. I was just
tired of reading countless stories of Seifer being a menace to
society or Seifer’s sudden change of heart. I can’t take anymore
mushy, too-perfect romance between Squall and Rinoa. I couldn’t stand
Cid’s being able to chew Squall out after he saved the world. I
haven’t seen too many people use GFs as more than just weapons of war
in their stories (the exception being Kate Lorraine’s "The Claiming
of Shiva" in which she incorporates lines like, "Oh, [Shiva] wanted
this one. This one, she had to make her own."). I don’t find Rinoa’s
new sorceress powers are that entertaining. I’m mad at all the
fanfics that leave the reader hanging and never get finished,
especially with so many people, like myself, who have already beaten
FF9 in Japanese. I think Ultimecia’s return or the repeat of the
Lunar Cry is unoriginal. I felt Squaresoft left a lot of things to be
explained. I hope not to fix all of this, but to present before you
something new, if you give me the chance.
Be warned that my writing does not exude the elegance or
delectability of Kate Lorraine's. My style has neither the maturity
nor delicacy of DJ Johnston's; neither the sentimentality nor the
poignancy of Arian's; neither the temerity nor the intrepidity of
Darren Shier's; neither the gravity nor flourish of Larathia's;
neither the refinement nor efficiency of Malice Shaw's. I do not
elevate the language behooved by the epic tradition as does
XmagicalX. Instead, I elevate the voice. The prose I promise is
whimsical and sprightly. I plan to give you an exploration of the
people and their interaction with each other and the world of Final
Fantasy 8. I have intended for you not to get caught up in the plot
as much as be swept away by the drama and pathos. The creativity I
offer, I'm afraid, extends only as far as the bounds of my
eccentricity and the reader's willingness to be led. The saddest part
is when you have to leave this dream world that I've constructed.
A quick word of caution, though. I abuse the usage of participles
and adverbs, and I am shameless in experimenting with narrative
distance (though nowhere near as adept or fanatical as Woolf or
Joyce). If the story happens to bore, disgust, offend, or annoy you
in any way, don’t tell me about it because I don’t want to know. If
you want another story, or a sequel perhaps, drop a line with any
fictitious character names you would like to see incorporated in it,
or any fresh ideas. So now, without further delay, I shall make my
invocation and send you off into my own microcosm of Final Fantasy
VIII:
"Be with me, Muse of all Desire, Erato,
While I call up kings, the early times…
A greater history opens before my eyes,
A greater task awaits me."
-Vergil
Aeneid VII
PuPu’s Saga Plot Summary (Chap-by- chap)
by Jeremy Chapter
"I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move."
-Tennyson, Alfred, Lord
Ulysses 18
This chapter-by-chapter plot summary is pretty rough, and maybe
only 94% accurate because I tend to change little details and add
many others as I write. It is not meant to be a substitute for the
actual story, but a reference to refresh the memory of old readers
who need to refresh their memories or new readers to catch up and get
to the new stuff in case they feel that they have missed too much to
get into the story (which is absolutely not true because this story
is supposed to be 66 Settings long and I've only gotten 16 done so
far).
Detailed Plot v 3.8 (Many pardons if the story deviates slightly):
Prologue: 1716 DAY 27, Tomb of the Unknown King Main Chamber
"O cruel one, bestow on me
Some taken of your sovereign sway,
Which I may follow earnestly,
And never from its precept stray.
If you would have me fade away
In silence, then account me dead,
But if you'd hear my ancient lady,
Then Love himself my cause shall plead.
My soul to contraries inured
Is made of wax and adamant,
And well prepared for Cupid's law.
Whether soft or hard my heart is yours,
To grave it leave to you I'll grant,
And to your will I'll bow with awe.
-Cervantes
Don Quixote of La Mancha
Squall is hurting badly. He sees that Rinoa is about to kill him.
Twenty-seven days earlier:
Setting 01: 1220 DAY 0, Alcaud Plains around Balamb
"A savage race, that hoard, and sleep, and feed…know not
me.
I cannot rest from travel."
-Tennyson, Alfred, Lord
Ulysses 5
PuPu gets killed while wandering towards Balamb Garden.
Setting 02: 1427 DAY 1, Winhill Cemetery
"This is my son…When I am gone. He works his work, I mine."
-Tennyson, Alfred, Lord
Ulysses 33
Laguna chats with Raine and lets her know that their son is a
success. He has totally misjudged Squall as being a person who
doesn't need the opinions of others. Laguna himself is not a very
good father. He envisions his proposal to Raine. Ellone, Kiros, and
Ward arrive.
Setting 03: 1458 DAY 1, Winhill Outskirts
"Down stage he strode some paces,
grave, tall in affliction, his long arms outheld.
Hoarsely the apple of his throat hoarsed softly.
Softly he sang to a dusty seascape there: A Last Farewell.
A headland, a ship, a sail upon the billows.
Farewell. A lovely girl, her veil awave
upon the wind upon the headland, wind around her."
-Joyce, James
Ulysses II
Laguna has decided to stay in Winhill while Ellone decides to go
back to Esthar accompanied by Ward and Kiros. By chance they meet on
their way the current owner of Raine's house is infected by some
fatal respiratory disease and collapses in a seizure. It requires
more than a Curaga because it had been carried for a long time and
only the Esthar medical technology could surgically cure her ailment.
Ellone gives up her seat while Kiros and Ward head on first. Ellone
waits by herself for the next ship, and seeing soon after a light
coming in her direction from the sky, stand up eagerly to board it.
Setting 04: 1533 DAY 1, Great Salt Lake Perimeter
"It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be
governed,
when that little wisdom is its own."
-W. R. Inge
Strange beings in their own language discuss where to land their
ships and pick this place that look like its using a lot of power. It
is a good place because it is invisible, and they are surprised at
meeting such advanced a civilization. One still sneers at the
primitiveness though. The other asks for the objective again, and the
latter tells him that they’re here to find their last comrade who
never returned from a planetary sampling assignment. The sampling
assignment has been going on to find out every piece of knowledge
that this planet had, and had been completed by small individual
crafts till now, because it is an elevated state of danger. Ellone
and Caraway (as we shall find out) are being tested. They talk about
taking another native to ransom back their comrade but decide instead
to send another one of their party to go undercover and confirm their
worst suspicions, that their comrade is dead.
Setting 05: 2045 DAY 1, Balamb Garden Ballroom
"How dull it is to pause, to make an end.
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!"
-Tennyson, Alfred, Lord
Ulysses 22
At the party, Cid assigns the position of Headmaster of the new
Trabia Garden to Squall. Quistis is to go along as his aide and
Selphie will head the reconstruction crew. Dr. Kadowaki will go along
with them. Squall receives a brief communication with Laguna but
their father-son talk doesn’t get anywhere. Irvine and Zell are
dispatched to investigate atmospheric phenomena along the four fields
spread over the world. Mina will be leaving for Galbadia the next
morning on a campaign to save all animals in the wild from the
poisonous green Malboro. Rinoa will stay at Balamb Garden for a week
or two until things are settled there before going to see Squall.
Angelo will tag along with her.
11 days later:
Setting 06: 1730 DAY 12, Trabia Heath Peninsula Island
"’But now reach out your hand; open my eyes.’
And yet I did not open them for him;
And it was courtesy to show him rudeness."
-Dante Alighieri
Inferno XXXIII
Zell and Irvine have been running around all the sites and are
about to close in on the one closest to Trabia. They are pretty
pissed at being sent on what seemed like a good mission but didn’t
turn out to be too fun. They didn’t even stop in Winhill to rest like
they planned because they were behind schedule. The got delayed in
the negotiations because they couldn’t speak Shumi. They take turns
blaming each other for it. They don’t see anything at the sites, not
looking at the ground to see the UFO marks, but they do talk to some
people. A cow is missing from Winhill Bluffs, but that is all they
find unusual. They lose the Ragnarok’s keys.
Two days later:
Setting 07: 1417 DAY 15, Nova Trabia Public Basketball Courts
"I am become a name;
for always roaming with a hungry heart
much have I seen and known,- cities of men
and drunk delight of battle with my peers."
-Tennyson, Alfred, Lord
Ulysses 11
Worried about the growing complaints about rampant theft in the
new Garden, Quistis is looking for Squall whom she can't find in any
of his usual hiding places, of which the basketball courts was his
favorite. Some students are playing there on their off time from the
Garden and start to hit on her, thinking she's Rinoa, while Squall's
not there. A mysterious stranger saves her from the players but is
exposed as the cause for all the thefts. She is surprised to find
Irvine at the Trabia basketball courts with Zell taunting him because
he has missed the last ten shots from the same place. They stopped by
after checking their fourth and last site. Quistis remark that
Alexander GF took off for vacation. As soon as Quistis leaves, Irvine
pulls out his Tonberry King to block shots and Jumbo Cactuar to
rebound. Zell says it isn’t too smart an idea, and that it wasn’t
fair because he didn’t have any GFs on him.
Setting 08: 1820 DAY 15, Trabia Coast-bordering Cliffs
"All times I have enjoy’d
greatly, have suffer’d greatly; both with those
that loved me, and alone."
-Tennyson, Alfred, Lord
Ulysses 7
Squall is sitting on the cliff with his legs hanging over it,
pondering to himself. He is in low spirits because he is still
steamed at Rinoa after two weeks and will convince himself that she
is no good for him. He calls Ifrit, Diablos, Cerberus and Doomtrain
out to talk about Garden and Rinoa. Cereberus converses with three
mouths, Diablos offers to kill Rinoa, Ifrit will light his cigarette,
and Doomtrain will say that it is bad for him. Cereberus smells
Quistis coming so Squall dismisses them.
Setting 09: 1856 DAY 15, Balamb Garden Subsidiary Corridor 2F
"It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
it may be we shall touch the Happy Isles."
-Tennyson, Alfred, Lord
Ulysses 62
Rinoa is getting abused by the girls who hate her at Balamb
Garden. She has an eating disorder. She decides Squall has had enough
time to receive her and packs her bags and lifts Squall’s keys from
his room to the cars in the Garden parking lot. En route, she is
taken prisoner.
Setting 10: 1910 DAY 15, Directly over Esthar City
"Ah, Genoese, a people strange to every
constraint of custom, full of all corruption,
why have you not been driven from the world?"
-Dante Alighieri
Inferno XXXIII
The strange beings are now talking and have almost confirmed their
suspicions that mankind is inherently bad and that the SeeD commander
was perfectly capable and in some way ergo responsible for the death
of one of their comrades. The more assertive alien tells that he
already sent their undercover agent to carry out a more active role,
and having completed the mission, was now transferred to the second
phase of their revenge. The less aggressive alien is displeased for
having been left out of the loop, remind the first that in the future
they should collaborate as the rules stated, and that they were not
out for revenge just yet. The mission should still be a study to
ascertain the truth behind their companion’s death. The less
aggressive alien asks how the two test subjects are doing (Ellone and
Caraway) and the response is the tests are doing well.
Setting 11: 2018 DAY 15, Trabia Coast-bordering Cliffs
"It little profits… an idle king,
by this still hearth, among these barren crags."
-Tennyson, Alfred, Lord
Ulysses 1
Quistis finds Squall at sunset by himself sitting on the edge of
Trabia's cliff looking out onto the ocean shore below him. She notes
that Trabia is usually really cool but the summer evenings are
splendid. He’s wearing some weird orange and back t-shirt. Quistis
didn't know when Squall started wearing shorts or smoking as he
lights a small green piece of a Malboro tentacle, which she tells him
isn't too healthy. He doesn't care and there was no proof of that.
She notes that his legs are admirably tanned even though they
probably weren't used to seeing the sun. She mentions the thief that
just saved her and how she doesn't feel like she can capture him even
though he is a criminal. She tries to get him to talk about their
feelings for each other before she is taken completely by Squall.
When she realizes what she was about to do, she leaves back towards
the Garden in a hurry. Squall suddenly hears a cry for help down
below. Asking Leviathan GF to save the girl below would take way too
long. He throws away the cigarette, quickly gets Ifrit to Mad Rush
him for inspiration, and makes a daring leap off the cliff and lands
in the water just in time to save a girl with ocean blue hair from
some water monster.
Setting 12: 2039 DAY 15, Just beyond Winhill Cemetery
"Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
Against stupidity the very god
Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
Wise foundress of the system of the world,
Guide of the stars, who are thou then, if thou,
Bound to the tail of folly's uncurb'd steed,
Must, vainly shrieking, with the drunken crowd,
Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss."
-Johann Christian Friedrich von Schiller
Laguna, having secured one end of a rope on a tree trunk and
having wrapped the other end around his hand, jumps down a crevice
beyond the graveyard to save the cat belonging to the owner of the
bar, who had fallen in. He wished he had equipped a GF so he could
cast a Float spell on himself. Kiros and Ward had come back after two
weeks of not hearing from Laguna or Ellone. They arrived just as
Laguna was responding to a call for help about the cat, so they were
unable to question him in depth about the whereabouts of Ellone and
because of serious blackout issues of Esthar power grids that started
since their initial departure from Winhill. Laguna is taking an
exceptionally long time so they head into town and at the bar, but en
route meet multi-colored hair Jeremy Chapter, childhood friend of
Selphie from Trabia and now doing an sociology study in various areas
of the world. Stiltzkin, the travelling moogle in FF9 is kicking the
side of Jeremy’s shoes. He had just gotten into town that day, but
would be leaving to Trabia Garden in a bit. Jeremy is doing two
things at once; writing a novel about siblings with identity crises
that Kiros finds particularly interesting, and cursing his
differential equations exam to come (former student of the Trabia
Academy, now blown to bits so he’s trying a global online course). In
Jeremy’s story, the two were separated from birth and while one has
now stepped out of his place, the other fills it in for him. Kiros
and Ward head back, find that Laguna still isn’t done, so they go
back and talk to Jeremy. Jeremy now reveals that he arrived from
Galbadia and had documented a fascinating anti-Malboro campaign. He’d
also met a woman named Mina there. Jeremy is looking for 400 Cactus
Thorns, a Rosetta Stone, and Eden to refine them into 4 ‘Hundred
Needles.’ Finally Kiros and Ward go back and Laguna is done. After
pulling himself up and letting the cat go, Laguna loses his footing
before the neighbors can grab him and drops back into the gorge and
knocks himself out.
Setting 13: 2041 DAY 15, Nova Trabia Garden Officer’s Lounge 1F
"Captaining this venture was a woman."
-Vergil
Aeneid II
In the Trabia Garden lounge, Selphie is gets trapped in the sofa
before she is helped out by a student. She goes through the daily
reports, noting the good work of a short recruit from Balamb named
Dante. She also notes that Irvine has been relieved of all court
privileges because his Jumbo Cactuar popped all the balls and sent
all the players to the infirmary and Tonberry chopped three of the
backboards into pieces before Irvine could call him back. In order to
pay for the damages, Irvine suggests that they split up to increase
their collective pay six fold and makes Selphie mad. She slaps him,
then furiously kisses him for being jealous, and recovering, slaps
him again and then leaves. After asking Zell if that was a good sign
or a bad sign, Zell slaps him too just for fun, and the two end up in
wrestling on the floor. A nervous Quistis, having rushed back into
the Garden bumps into Selphie who is also red. Quistis, shaking,
wants some coffee so they both walk back into the lounge and seeing
the two men wrestling, excuse themselves, upon which the two break up
instantly. Irvine rushes after them while a profane Zell storms off
towards the Garden exit by himself.
Setting 14: 2059 DAY 15, Archaeological Excavation Site on the
Outskirts of Nova Trabia
"’Now you must cast aside your laziness,’
my master said, ‘for he who rests on down
or under covers cannot come to fame’."
-Dante
Inferno XXIV
Seifer pushes Rajin out of the way and Fujin trips Rajin. They are
busy pulling off some scheme in a locked room where the church group
outside had thought they were trying to purify themselves. Titanus GF
is called out to help them dig. He remembers what the sorceress had
done to seduce him; she gave him a trial that he could not hope to
pass. He catches Rajin asleep and prepares to whack him to wake him
up.
Setting 15: 2110 DAY 15, Deling City, Caraway’s Mansion 2F (Master
Bedroom)
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.
-Antoine De Saint-Exupery
Rinoa snaps awake and finds herself back in Caraway's mansion
where her father will arrange her marriage to Squall with President
Laguna over the phone because he sees many prospects in him. Angelo
has been placed in a kennel outside the house because he can't keep
quiet. Rinoa is visited by two of her friends who tell her that she
was brought into the house by a midget whom they have mistaken to be
her new boyfriend. Rinoa has no clue what they are talking about, and
she is worried because her father isn't acting like himself.
Setting 16: 2128 DAY 15, Trabia Coast-bordering Forests
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our
hearts,
than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover
impotence."
-Gandhi
No peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No
peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No peeking.
No peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No
peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No peeking.
No peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No peeking. No peeking.