Time.

It all came down to time, didn't it. Daear took weeks to pore over the documents she'd pried loose from under the floorboards of Detmer's office. Weeks to make sure she understood every single thing written on those sheets of paper. She'd had to study textbooks on biochemistry and para-magic just to have a framework for understanding the notations.

Well. She was a genius, after all. It meant she didn't socialize at the clubs for a while, but she could do the work in the evenings.

It all made so much sense now. Why Detmer had wanted them, needed them alive. Why he'd taken samples of their blood on a semi-regular basis for years. She and her siblings hadn't just been powers, to Detmer. They'd been resources. Valuable, irreplaceable resources.

It wasn't genius-level work, the papers that she had. Detmer had not been an inventor or innovator. What he had been was an opportunist, and when he'd seen the original survivors of the attack at the complex start dying - dying horribly, by his notes, burning or freezing or asphyxiating and at least one had vanished into thin air - he'd gathered the pregnant ones together. The mothers were dying, no question about it. Dying of the power in their blood that their bodies couldn't control. But all signs showed the unborn children to be healthy, and therein lay the opportunity. Detmer got guardianship over all the unborn children, legally granted by the mothers.

But how had Garden known, Detmer? Daear mentally asked the notes. How did my father get tangled up in this, that we are all his children - and the only survivors?

There was nothing in the notes to say. No mention was made of Squall at all, nor of any reason why the women would become pregnant at the same time they accepted becoming part of this...grand experiment. Detmer hadn't been interested in recording any history not concerned with the six unborn children and their power.

But on that...oh, on that he was most amazingly communicative. He had studied all six children in depth, made remarkably accurate guesses as to eventual final strengths and weaknesses...she had information enough here to scare Seifer down to his bootheels.

Detmer had perceived the friendships and rivalries of Daear and her siblings in terms of powers. Daear was rival of the twins because the three of them drew their power from the same source - the earth itself. Her rivalry with Gwynt was cast in terms of opposites - her earth to his sky, both alone because the twins didn't get involved, and invariably vying for dominance with each other as a result. And outside these rivalries stood Taran and Nodwydd - both of whom Detmer regarded as valuable, but for different reasons. Nodwydd was biddable and in terms of power alone the strongest of the six; so much so that alone of the group his power was digital - he could use it, or not, but he could not use it at less than its full power. And even as a child, that power had been lethal. On top of it, Nodwydd had a weakness that was easy to exploit - Detmer had noted how Nodwydd hated baths, and swam poorly, and postulated that his affinity to cactuars meant he had a built in aversion or weakness to water. From Detmer's viewpoint, this made Nodwydd the perfect one to train as an assassin - teach him to kill, teach him to use that lethal power at his 'father's' behest, and if he ever rebelled it would be easy enough to use a firehose on him, or drop him in the ocean.

Practical, practical, Daear nodded to herself as she read through the notes. I see why you were so reluctant to teach me, foster-father-dearest-daddy. Gwynt would never have been as biddable as Nodwydd was, and without him you had no means of holding me. It made her smile; Gwynt might hate her with a great and burning passion, but if he prided himself on anything it was being independent. He would never have turned his power on her just on Detmer's say-so, even if he completely agreed that his sister should die.

Taran worried Detmer, though. Page after page of notes revealed that Detmer had tested her brother for any sort of weakness that could be exploited, the way the other five had, and he'd found nothing. Though Taran's power was impossible to completely contain or control in the way Nodwydd's was, and he never killed people (though he'd accidentally once fried a cat in the wintertime, before they'd learned not to let him wear wool sweaters, and he had short-circuited any amount of electronic equipment) Taran had no weakness. He was never at a disadvantage, and in certain circumstances was very much at an advantage.

Once, when they were very young, Taran had accidentally overloaded a valuable piece of equipment - just by touching it. And Detmer, in a rage at the expense of the loss, had beaten her brother for it. But it had done little good - when the weeping boy had been sent back to The Room, he'd jammed his finger into the power outlet and healed himself in mere moments. Daear would wager that Taran didn't even remember the incident now - but it was all right here, in the notes. Detmer had decided then and there not to use force against any of the six, just in case the other five worked out how to heal themselves too, and became ungovernable.

There were all sorts of notes here, on their powers, their strengths, and their weaknesses, and Daear studied all of them carefully.

There were also notes that showed what else Detmer had been doing with the blood samples he'd taken.

His thugs had been his guinea pigs. Detmer had found that small doses of blood taken from the six children would grant temporary power to the recipient - whatever the child's power was. He postulated that a full transfusion would grant the power on a permanent basis, but for that he would have to wait until the children were older, and larger.

Daear tapped her lips with one finger. This...held promise. The notes were precise - how much blood was needed to grant a power to a man of such and such a size, and how long it would last.

She smiled to herself. No. She would not give a man her power on a permanent basis - she would have no means of controlling him then. But she could grant it on a temporary basis, and addict her target to the power (for Detmer had seen that as well - once his servants had had power, even briefly, they became fanatic to have it again). She could...

Why, she could bear children that would be stronger than she was. And with them at her side, even her siblings could not dispute her control of Deling City. It was a long-term plan, admittedly - the children would have to be conceived, and be given time to grow up...but she knew where her father had failed, and Detmer had failed, to hold her loyalty. Children of her body she could love. And with this - with this the father she chose would have power as well. For exactly long enough - two gifted parents ensuring strong, powerful children. Who would love her and - hopefully - follow her orders. It would take longer, but it was more likely to work than Detmer's method of simply infusing hired thugs. Thugs could find a new employer, but everyone only ever had one mother.

And even if they had no interest in rule...they would be stronger than the children of her siblings. Power gathered around the strongest - she wanted power to gather around her.

And to that end...

* * * * * *

Garrett Deling was easily bored. His father nominally ran Deling City, as Mayor, but Garrett was typically left to his own devices. He was, of course, expressly forbidden from doing anything that might make the newspapers, or adversely affect his father's career - though the office of Mayor had a strong hereditary streak, it was still an elected post and succession or even continued rule was never guaranteed. After the last Sorceress fiasco, the Delings had been out of favor with the populace for several years.

So, naturally, he took every opportunity to do anything he wasn't supposed to - and was currently in one of the more disreputable nightclubs, looking over a tray of designer drugs. He'd tried most of them already.

"Boring, aren't they?" inquired a soft, clear alto voice. He turned to find a....really amazingly pretty girl watching him, pale eyes framed by dark lashes, pale skin by dark hair, and a plain white baby doll t-shirt stretched tightly over a chest he was trying not to look at - not that he had an aversion to chests, but it wasn't good to be seen overtly drooling over them.

"The known always is," he replied, trying to sound worldly.

The girl laughed, the sound like low church bells. "Not always," she replied. "But if it helps, then I won't tell you my name."

Garrett smirked. Looking like that, he could probably ask anyone here her name and get an answer. Girls who looked like that weren't just seen, they were remembered.

She evidently interpreted his smirk to her own satisfaction - she leaned in close, not quite touching, and brought her face up to almost touch his. For a moment he thought she'd kiss him, and his lips parted slightly - though women quite that domineering weren't at all his style. But she didn't kiss him.

He could hardly avoid looking into her pale gray eyes - they filled almost all his vision. So he could hardly miss seeing them flash - literally flash, two solid glowing fields of dark yellow-gold - as he felt himself briefly tugged downward...though he knew the girl wasn't touching him.

And then she stepped back, her own lips just slightly quirked in the barest beginnings of a smile, and slipped into the crowd - making her way, he could see, for the exit.

Well, fuck that. Screw knowing her name, he wanted to know what that eye trick was, and the tugging. Quickly he followed, making his way toward the door with singleminded intensity.

Outside, it was late night, and she was leaning in a way he knew was meant to catch his eye against a lamp-post. Her dress was casual and not unusual - tight, low-riding black denim tucked into calf-high black leather boots that were more biker than dominatrix to his mind. She'd picked up a dagger from somewhere - most likely her boots, as her arms and midriff were exposed and she wore no hip-sheath. A silver-hilted dagger, which she was toying with in her fingers.

But Garrett was a Deling - and that meant, among other things, he had his priorities in order. "What was that thing with your eyes?" he demanded.

"You followed me out here, where I could kill you in a heartbeat, and you don't know?" the girl asked, smiling slightly. "Are you brave or stupid, Garrett Deling?"

He blinked. She'd recognized him, and named him. Doing both was usually a sign of a shakedown, but she was apparently alone. "You don't want me dead," he told her. "My father owns this town. Kill me and he'll hunt you down in a heartbeat."

The girl seemed unconcerned, toying with her dagger. "Dangerous, Garrett, to rely on your father's power," she commented with just a slight hint of smile in her voice. "Wouldn't you rather have power of your own?"

"And you're just going to hand it to me," Garrett returned snidely. "A nameless girl on the streets."

"I have what you need," she said lightly. "And you have what I want. A deal can always be made."

"I don't know what you're talking about," snapped Garrett. "Quit playing mysterious, or I'm going back to the club."

The girl's eyes flared gold, glowing brightly - and Garrett found himself literally rooted to the spot. "Is this plain enough for you, Garrett?" she asked, her voice now low and dangerous. "Do you like this, the kiss of mother Earth?" The pull increased, dragging him to his knees. "Would you like to feel her full embrace?" She stepped forward then, setting the edge of her dagger lightly - almost caressingly - at Garrett's throat. Her golden eyes were lacking iris or pupil, entirely inhuman as they stared into his face, but her voice was soft and low and slightly husky. "Do I frighten you, Garrett Deling? Are you worried yet?"

He couldn't move. He couldn't move and that dagger could kill him with a tiny flick of the wrist. It scratched, painfully sharp, as he swallowed. "Yes," he croaked, and answered almost all of her questions with it. "Let me go."

She stepped back, pulling her dagger away but not her power. "What if I offered you this power, Garrett?" she asked. "What would you give for it?"

He blinked. "What do you want for it?" he asked.

"Favors," the girl returned, and that hint of smile was back on her face. "I name a price, and if you pay it I will give you power. If you don't pay it, I give you nothing. An equable arrangement, don't you think?"

This was sounding far too vague for Garrett's liking - he frowned. "What favor?"

She laughed then, low in her throat. "For a first time? Nothing you haven't wanted to do anyway. It will adapt you to the power, and the change in your perceptions."

He gaped. He couldn't help it, really. She was offering him magical power, in exchange for spending the night with her? He would have paid good money for either. Using the one to pay for the other was just...insane. "I agree," he said quickly, before she changed her mind.

She nodded, and produced a steel hypodermic - he had no way of seeing what was in it. Her grip on his head, in his hair, was frighteningly strong as she emptied the hypodermic into the vein at his neck.

Oh, gods, the whole world changed. More alive, more real, he could see and hear and smell farther than ever in his life. He put his hand to the sore place at his neck, realized he could move, and stood up, looking around. It was night - he knew it was night. But he could see as far and as clearly as if it were day. A faint scent of jasmine came from the girl that he hadn't noticed before. She was watching him solemnly, and pointed above them at the street-lamp. "Focus on that," she told him. "Focus on pulling it to you."

He did, and it did - it bent downwards, towards him, and it was the biggest rush of his life to feel that kind of power. A faint breeze carried the whiff of jasmine to him again, and suddenly he wanted to know just how far the changes went. He turned to the girl, who nodded slightly. "Your place?" she asked.

"Deling City is 'my place'," he growled, and led the way down an alleyway, noting that he could see everything even without light.

The girl frowned a moment, then shrugged and followed him.

* * * * * *

The best plans are fluid and changeable for altered circumstances. But Daear had set this one off perfectly. As a lover, Garrett left much to be desired, and her first sexual experience had left Daear with a strong and undeniable need for a long, hot shower. But she'd timed it carefully, and it had only taken the one night. It had, unfortunately, taken the whole night - she knew Garrett well enough from her time observing him to know that he would take any advantage he was given, and she did not want him to know how much she disliked being touched at all, much less being used as a warm-blooded blow up doll.

She consoled herself the following day by planning, very carefully and in meticulous detail, Garrett's death. Using his own children as the murder weapons if she possibly could. And she was immensely relieved to find out, two weeks later, that one night was all it had taken for her to conceive. She would not have to endure this a second time, any time soon.

Detmer's notes had been completely accurate - Daear had provided Garrett with exactly enough blood to power him until roughly noon the following day, and she made a point of watching the noon broadcast for news of the mayor's family. Sure enough, there were reports that Garrett's visit alongside his father to the spring opening of a botanical garden were abruptly ended when Garrett fainted. There were plenty of film snips of the event as well, and Daear smiled. Live that one down, little pig. She deliberately waited a few weeks before returning to the club - long enough to ascertain that she had definitely conceived.

She didn't even have to enter the club; Garrett had taken to lounging around outside it. He sprang at her when he saw her at the entrance to the alley he'd taken her into, and she took great delight in pulling him right to his knees.

"I have to have more of it," he said desperately. "Nothing feels right any more. Anything you want, anything at all."

Daear's face was impassive, but inside she was gleeful. He would be repaid for his handling of her, oh yes. A thousandfold, ten thousandfold. And she would rule this city. "First, your word that you will never touch me again without my express permission. I don't care what the circumstances are, or how light the touch. You will not lay a finger upon me without my permission." She leaned forward. "And know that if you break that promise for any reason, I will kill you."

He blinked. "It wasn't that bad surely?" he began, but when the pressure on his body increased he quickly capitulated. "All right, all right!"

Daear nodded. "Your price, Garrett Deling, is marriage. Make me your wife, and on your wedding night you may take as many whores as you please with the power I give you." She smiled again, cold and lethal. "And if any of them try to bear your children, Garrett, I will kill them. And then you, for being stupid twice."

"Marriage?" Garrett gaped. "I don't even know your name! And I'm expected to have children, it's...it's political..." He was clearly having a hard time understanding the point.

"You will have children, Garrett," Daear assured him. "You do already. You will pay my price either way - either now, before it shows, or later on when it does, and the papers may go on at elaborate length about your loose morals. Which, you well know, will destroy any chance you have of succeeding your father as mayor of Deling City."

* * * * * *

Irvine slammed his coffee cup down on the bolted utility table, and the paper soon after it. "I knew we shouldn't have left Deling," he snapped.

Selphie turned the headline around. Son of Mayor Marries Heiress, it said, and the picture was of a very nice wedding. She was in white, which threw Selphie off for a moment, but the bride was certainly Daear. "Since when is she an heiress?" she asked. "Squall didn't exactly own anything really inheritable."

"Look at the name," he growled. "I don't know how she did it, but she took over someone else's identity."

"Adrienne Thomas?" Selphie asked. "Very...ordinary, really. I'd have thought she'd go for something more exotic. Or if she took over an heiresses' identity, that she'd take over one that was heiress to some money. There's no mention here of the size of the Thomas estate."

Irvine sighed and thunked his head against the table. "I'm too far away here to keep an eye on her," he admitted. "And it looks like she really needs watching. I'm just glad Seifer doesn't read the social pages, or she'd already be in trouble."

Selphie looked sad. "Irvy...I don't want to go too far. Kadowaki knows me best and all, and Sis isn't that much older than I am..."

Irvine got up slowly and put his arms around his wife. "I know Sefie, I know, but this is literal life and death here. You're on maternity leave anyway. Can't we take that leave in Deling? Please? I don't like Daear any more than you do but if she's caught the other five will end up right behind her. I've got to know what's going on that she'd let her picture make the front pages like that."

Selphie's hand lightly brushed her stomach - she was only just confirmed pregnant, it didn't yet show at all, but they'd been trying so long..."Irvy, go alone? I won't hold it against you."

Irvine looked shocked. "Sef, if I leave you here...you'd be hundreds of miles away when the baby's born. I'd never make it back in time. I don't want you going through that alone...please. There's great hospitals in Deling, I haven't splurged on anything recently and if money runs low I'll...I'll go for a rank promotion to cover it and twist Seifer's ear off till he gives it to me."

Selphie tilted her chair back, thinking as one finger twisted itself in her hair. "Tell you what. I'll talk with Kadowaki, and if she says there's no real risk, I'll go with you to Deling. But if she says there could be trouble, I'll stay here and you go by yourself okay? I promise if anything happens you'll be the second person to know about it, 'kay?"

Irvine got to his feet. "Okay," he agreed reluctantly. "But you'd better believe if you have to stay here I'll get a videographer in here to cover the whole thing."

Selphie whacked him on the shoulder, not entirely in play. "Irvine Kinneas! You want some total stranger with a camera filming me in that position? Hmpfh! And here I thought you'd learned some sensitivity!"

Irvine's expression turned sheepish. "I suppose mentioning I was going to ask Fujin wouldn't help?" he ventured, and Selphie roughly pushed him out of the door to their shared rooms, following herself soon after.

"Irvine, really. The next think you'll be telling me you want to sell nude shots of me at six months to a porn mag."

This time Irvine said nothing at all, but wisely kept his mouth shut as he escorted his wife down the hall.

He couldn't hide the speculative grin, though.