Deling City.

It had many names, many associations. Capital of Galbadia, City of the Sorceress, the most openly, cheerfully corrupt city on the face of the earth. No one got anywhere in Deling without greasing the right palms with the right prices - at least, nobody got anywhere that mattered. It was a city that respected only strength and power, and the few times in its history that an honest and hardworking official had become its leader, it had always lost more than it gained.

Daear strolled through it like an uncrowned queen, bathed in the neon lights of its bars, dance halls, and casinos. A city of hedonists and sensualists, who lived in the now and gave not a damn for the then or the henceforth. The lights reflected in her gray eyes, changing them as they picked up the color and sent it back.

She smiled like a January sunrise - perfect, and perfectly cold.

She didn't present quite the image she wanted to, just yet. The travel from the deserted nowhere that Irvine had brought them to had not been without its hardships, even with the power she commanded. Her clothes were hardwearing, as she'd known she would have to travel, but she still presented a beautiful image. Tight, hip-hugging black denim jeans tucked into soft, calf-high black boots, and a short white tank top that stopped just above the base of her ribcage. Her maple-brown hair she let fall free; a brush was one of the few toiletries she'd been able to bring with her, and it fell in shining rivers halfway down her back. At five-foot-eight she was not a short girl, and with the sharp, fey features of her father she could turn any male head anywhere.

Even with the slightly darker patches on her black jeans that were from monster blood. Even with some of that blood splattered across her white tank-top, smeared across one perfect ivory cheek. Even then. All it did was upgrade her from beautiful to femme fatale, she knew - for now she looked like a 'tough girl', and what big burly man can resist taking on a tough girl to prove he's stronger?

Daear had more than her father's looks, and she was proud of that. She had his quick mind as well, and the ability to make plans that were both simple and effective.

She didn't plan for the same things her father did, though - or her half-brother Taran, either. Both of them thought that other people must come first. Squall called it duty; Taran called it honor.

Daear called it idiocy. She had strength and intelligence and beauty and power - and she was not going to enter into some stupid self-imposed exile simply because Seifer wanted all of the Pride under his thumb where he could see them. Nor was she going to disguise her beauty simply because some slightly-more-perceptive-than-Jell-O nobody realized that gosh, she really did bear a resemblance to the Late Great Squall Leonhart, didn't she.

If Seifer came calling, he'd find out just how much use a gunblade is to an idiot who suddenly can't lift it in ten gravities.

If Squall took exception to her...well, that would be harder. She'd really just have to see to it that she didn't cross that line. Squall would leave her alone, she knew, until such time as she moved openly - putting SeeD on her trail, and on the trail of the rest of the Pride. As long as she didn't openly rule Deling City...as long as she didn't set the SeeD after her or the others...Squall would leave her alone. He never dealt with questions of right or wrong - he understood that perception was everything in a conflict.

Deling City had always been corrupt. It thrived on that corruption. If all Daear did was see to it that the corruption benefitted her instead of harmed her...no, her father wouldn't object to that at all. Rinoa might, of course, but Rinoa was a simpler being than her father. Rinoa was not the final word on decisions regarding the Pride, either. They might be one being, but Daear knew that Griever would follow Squall's thinking when it came to the Pride.

Daear deliberately walked away from the brightly lit strips, heading for dark alleys and ramshackle streets. It was time to begin - it had been a long trip, and she wanted to begin her ascent. The first thing to do was to acquire Gil. With that, she could then acquire lodgings and a suitable wardrobe for the circles she intended to move within.

Hence, her simple plan; she would walk alone down dangerous streets, and wait for some idiots to try to mug her, rape her, or kill her - not necessarily in that order, though. Muggers were never very bright. After fifteen minutes she began to grow bored, and started limiting her walking to just alleyways. Perhaps it would work more quickly if she stayed in the darkness.

Ah, paydirt. A group of eight men, all rather large in various dimensions and carrying an amusingly diverse array of weapons, detached themselves from various shadows and moved to surround her.

She knew what she was supposed to do. She was supposed to act frightened, or intimidated. Helpless - a young, unarmed woman alone and surrounded by big, burly, armed men...oh, shiver. Daear spared a moment's regret that she had not a single shred of acting ability, and fought to suppress a comment to the effect of what kept you? so that at least she'd have surprise on her side.

She didn't give them the time to reach for her, or say anything amusingly stupid or threatening. She'd been walking in dark alleyways for at least an hour, and she had more important things to do than banter with a soon-to-be-dead halfwit. She narrowed her eyes, and touched her power. Grabbed it with both metaphorical hands and called every shred of it she could, in a radius of twenty feet.

She held it for only two heartbeats at that strength; she didn't want to collapse buildings on top of her and at twenty gravities buildings would crumble - as it was, the ramshackle houses were now significantly more ramshackle, and all eight of her attackers were dead. At the gravitational power she'd summoned, their hearts had given out.

She sighed. Really, she should've just summoned half the power and stabbed them - now she'd have to throw the bodies in a reservoir or something so an autopsy wouldn't reveal they'd died by magic. Quickly, efficiently, she riffled through their clothes and pulled out their wallets. Identification cards she tore or snapped, so that she could deposit them in trash cans around the city. The Gil, she took - and it came to a tidy sum, too, perhaps as much as two thousand. More than enough to get her started, especially as she could probably do this for a few more nights before the criminal element of the city became wary of her. She put the weapons that actually counted as such in a small pile; she'd come back for them in a few minutes.

She scouted around for a sewer grate, and when she found one in a relatively deserted area she carried the corpses to it two at a time. Then she called her power to the bodies - and the bodies only, using her gravity power to crush them into unidentifiable masses of goo that dripped down into the sewer. The only way to identify the bodies now would be by DNA analysis, and she rather doubted anyone in this city would care for eight thugs that much.

She walked back to her cache of weapons and scooped them up. One was a rather pretty dagger, and that she slipped into one boot. Then she scouted around for an all night pawn shop - the rest could be sold, and add to her night's profit. By the time she chose to sleep, she might have three thousand Gil to her name. And since she didn't really need to worry about her safety, any flophouse with a shower and a soft bed would be fine for the night.

Daear smiled her coldly perfect smile, and thought This town is perfect for me.