Reno and Rude, taking their "R and R," had wandered into a bar in another part of Edge. Sephiroth's attack and Geostigma might have fazed any other civilization in existence, but the people of Edge were not any other civilization. They erected roadblocks around craters and got on with their lives.
Normally, the Turks would have fit in as well as could be expected of two off-duty suits, but this time Reeve had insisted they take Cait Sith with them.
Now the cat sat on the bar next to Reno's bottle and shotglass. The Turk sincerely hoped that Reeve would be so kind as to call him on his cell and not draw attention to them –
"News, Reno, Rude!"
Reno blew out an irate sigh as everyone in the bar turned to look at him and Rude – and the cat, of course.
"Could you use a goddamn phone?" Reno asked, trying to keep his voice low.
"Why would I use a phone when this is so much faster?"
The answer, in the form of a hulking giant of a man, swaggered up behind Reno. "Hey, Red. Nice cat. It belong to yer husband Baldie here?"
Loud, jeering laughter broke out through the bar. It stopped when Reno, without taking his eyes off the cat, pulled his prod from his belt and smashed the man across the jaw. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I'm trying to talk with my boss. You're being rude right now."
Nobody had anything else to say.
Reno returned the prod to his belt, pouring himself another drink with his free hand. "What's up, Reeve?" he asked before downing the shot.
"I talked to Rufus about underwater materia. He says Shin-Ra had a stash of them at HQ, but get this – they were on the sixty-seventh floor. When the JENOVA specimen broke loose, all that materia disappeared. We can only assume it was consumed."
"Swing and a miss," Reno muttered. Rude said nothing.
"The other place he said to look would be the sunken Gelnika, but Cloud and company picked it clean and found no underwater materia. Unsurprising, since we weren't expecting to fight Sephiroth underwater, but still."
"So, we've exhausted possible Shin-Ra resources," Reno said. "Anywhere else we could go?"
"Yes," Reeve replied. "My own sources tell me that there's an archaeological team that used to do underwater work. They may have some underwater materia you can borrow."
"You figure these are the same guys who tried to get into the sunken city that Auron claims he knows?"
"How many teams of archaeologists do you know of that operate on a professional level?"
"Only one," Rude said before Reno could open his mouth. "Headed by Dr. Ashworth from Kalm."
The redhead looked at his partner, surprised. "How would you know?"
"One of the team's members worked for Shin-Ra for a while. We'd see one another when we got coffee and he'd tell me about their finds." Rude shrugged. "We sort of fell out of touch, but I remember his last name was Sparks."
"Already on it," Cait Sith told them.
Auron woke to the sound of someone being very sick.
There was a pause, then another "URRRK!"
Rolling off the bunk he'd been provided, Auron stuck his head out into the hall and followed the noises to the bathroom. "Who's in there? Are you hurt?"
The door abruptly opened to reveal a pale, haggard-looking Yuffie. "It's me. I have motion sickn – uhhhgh – URK –"
Thankfully, she managed to get to the receptacle before the motion sickness hit her again.
Between feeling rested and not wanting to contemplate sleep after that unpleasant sight, Auron decided to wander the ship. It was a large, almost labyrinthine vessel, but in many ways it reminded him of the airship he'd ridden in Spira, the Fahrenheit. The curves of the corridors, the high ceilings of the open rooms – there were more than a few passing similarities.
Eventually, he found himself on the bridge. Red XIII slumbered up against the viewport. Cid snoozed with one foot up on the wheel of the Shera – one might think he was piloting it in his sleep if the AUTOPILOT light hadn't been blinking.
"Couldn't sleep?"
Cloud stood behind Auron. He looked tired, and on his back in the harness was an enormous sword, bigger than Auron's Masamune.
"Yuffie… Well. It's not her fault she woke me."
The blonde gave him an embarrassed grin. "The Shera's got a nice rec center. Better place to think and work out than here."
Auron followed Cloud into a large room with several couches, a low table, and a large training mat with an array of weights set off to the side. On one of the couches, Vincent stretched out, eyes wide open.
"Awake?" Cloud asked.
"Yes. I've slept enough."
"It's a long story," Cloud said over his shoulder to Auron. Without further preamble he sat down and began to disassemble his sword into many smaller ones.
"Interesting," Auron commented. "How many blades are there total?"
"Six. The base that the smaller five fit onto is the First Tsurugi. Handy to have." Pulling out a cloth and some oil with which to polish the First Tsurugi's workings, Cloud ran an eye over Auron's sword. The guardian took it everywhere with him, even in the middle of the night on a friendly airship. "Nice rig."
"It's seen me through a lot," Auron replied, not confirming the compliment but not feeling modest enough to deny it. "It was christened the Masamune."
Cloud started, then returned his attention to the First Tsurugi. "His sword's called that, too."
"His?"
"It's Cloud's language," Vincent spoke up. "If Cloud says 'him' or 'his' or 'he' without particular context, he's talking about Sephiroth."
"Duly noted," Auron said, seeing how Cloud's grip on the pommel of his sword tightened at the sound of the name.
"Now I get why he started a fight without any other reason," Cloud said. "Your sword's got the same name as his."
"He's vain, then."
"Maybe. I don't know. Maybe Sephiroth is so far gone that vanity and stuff like that don't mean anything to him. I know that he probably took your sword's name as an insult."
"You must know him very well."
"It's a long story."
"Cloud for 'don't want to talk about it,'" Vincent said.
"You're chipper this evening," Cloud said, his voice more reproving than bitter.
"I'm excited. Auron's given us an intriguing mystery."
"You never seemed this eager when we were saving the world," Cloud observed with a small smile.
"What can I say? I want to see where this goes."
Cloud shrugged. "Fair enough."
Auron said nothing. Vincent reminded him entirely too much of Seymour: powerful, intelligent, and severely damaged.
The next morning, everyone convened on the bridge, all of them looking sleepy but excited – with the exception of Yuffie, who just looked sick.
"We're here, Cloud," Cid announced. "Switchin' to dive mode."
Abruptly, Auron was in free fall as the Shera dove, bridge-first, toward the surface of the ocean beneath them. Yuffie gave a low moan and started muttering to herself about her happy place.
Then there was the sound of a collision, and weight returned. Auron had never been weightless before, and the four or so seconds in which he had been were not pleasant. He thought he might have an inkling of what Yuffie felt like all the time on an airship.
He banished his queasiness. "Amazing. This is an amphibious craft?"
"If it weren't, we'd all be drowning right about now," Cid laughed.
"Pleasant image," Tifa said, the tiniest amount of strain sounding in her voice. "How far down, Cloud?"
Cloud shrugged. "No idea. Deep enough that you'd need underwater materia for the pressure, not just being able to breathe. The team mentioned that only one of the entrances is visible; they found the other one the same way the people in Bone Village do their excavations."
"Everyone keep your eyes peeled for a cave opening, then," Cid said, switching on the Shera's running lights.
Reno strolled up to the door of the small office building. "You sure this is the place, Reeve?"
Cait Sith – which, much to the chagrin of Rude, now rode on the man's shoulder – nodded. "Yes," Reeve affirmed. "When he left Shin-Ra about a year before Meteor, our Mr. Sparks worked for a number of smaller corporations before finding a job at the accounting department here. He should be inside."
"Fair enough." Reno opened one of the doors and found himself under the sudden and intense scrutiny of a petite, pretty receptionist. Both Turks hesitated at the door, then Reno put on his best grin before swaggering up to her desk.
"Welcome," she said, ignoring Reno's expression. "How can I help you gentlemen?"
"We're with the Turks," Rude said, atypically getting in the first word. "We're here for some information."
"You two are Turks?" she asked, apparently unimpressed.
"Yes."
"I prefer the term love machine," Reno interrupted, his grin widening.
"What are you trying to find out?" the receptionist plowed on.
"Your name, phone number, and sign." When the girl gave him nothing more than a baleful stare, Reno straightened and stopped grinning, reverting to his usual smirk. "Actually, we're wondering if we can see Mr. Sparks. We're told he works here and we have some questions for him."
The woman's expression went from barely-disguised irritation to genuine pity, a transformation that made Reno's own grin waver. "I'm so sorry," she said. "But Zach – er, Mr. Sparks – is dead. Has been for almost a year."
Reno instantly stopped smirking. "What? How?"
"He didn't just work here – he was also a member of this archaeological team that was investigating some ancient sunken ruins. The last time he came in for work, he was saying that they were on the verge of something big. That was the last time any of us saw him. The entire team's been missing, probably dead, for almost a year."
No words issued from Reno's drooping jaw, but Rude summed his feelings up in a terse expletive: "Shit."
"Do you guys see that?" Cid asked.
Auron peered into the darkness and saw a very familiar cave mouth yawning in the beam of the Shera's headlights. "I do. That's the entrance to Guadosalam, I'm positive." He turned to Cloud, Tifa, and Yuffie, who had assembled near the bridge's exit. "Are you all ready?"
Cloud hefted the First Tsurugi, all five secondary blades attached to the base blade. "Ready as I'll ever be." Tifa readjusted the black leather gloves she wore and gave him a thumbs-up, and now that the airship was no longer moving Yuffie was feeling well enough to do a little skip in place.
"If Reno and Rude can get us more underwater materia, we'll come in after you guys if yer gone too long," Cid said. "If not, we'll sit tight and hope nothin' eats ya."
"Haw, haw," Yuffie snorted.
As soon as they were outside, Reno pulled out his cell and dialed Cloud's number.
"We're sorry. This number is currently unavailable."
"Damn!" he swore. "They must already be underwater." He looked at Rude.
"Time to 'borrow' a radio broadcast station?" Rude asked.
"'Borrow' is such a strong word. I prefer the term 'hijack.'"
It was a strange experience, Auron thought, being underwater while still being able to breathe and speak normally.
He'd walked along the bottom of the Moonflow once, just after he had died at Yunalesca's hands. He'd dragged himself across the world to meet Jecht – Sin – and ride him to the dream Zanarkand of the Fayth. The entire time he'd been half-delirious, his soul wavering between Spira and the Farplane, so when he'd arrived at the Moonflow, he hadn't bothered to stop. He had just plodded through it.
Auron decided it was just as well he'd been dead. The whole scene seemed surreal, the strangeness only heightened by the fact that he was entering a Guadosalam that was thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean.
"This is it for sure?" Tifa asked. Her voice was muffled, but still audible. Ordinarily the immense pressure crushing down on them would have made it impossible for voices to travel, but the underwater materia was effective.
"I'm absolutely positive," he replied, shifting his grip on the Masamune. "I remember this entrance, however, as being at the end of a path through a forest. It's strange to see it like this."
"It's strange no matter how you look at it," Yuffie thought out loud. "Let's go inside."
Cloud nodded and motioned them all forward.
"You can't just barge in here like this!"
A popular radio station owned the nearest broadcasting center. Reno and Rude had made their way there. So far, they hadn't needed to hurt anyone, but nobody had been very happy when two armed men had barged into the building and demanded the use of their transmitter.
Now the radio jockey originally slated for this time-slot was giving Reno trouble. He ignored the man's protests, but drew the line when the punk laid a hand on his shoulder.
Reno shoved his arm straight toward the man's face, elbow unbent. The small holdout pistol in his sleeve shot into his hand, propelled by the spring mechanism triggered by the unique motion. The man was abruptly looking down the barrel of a derringer.
"I hate using guns," Reno said, "but we're hijacking this station for the greater good. Complaints are to be sent down the barrel of this pistol. Be advised: inflammatory comments might cause a premature detonation to shoot you in the face."
Unsurprisingly, the jockey had no more objections.
Reno plunked himself down in the chair in front of the broadcasting equipment while Rude took up station behind him. Flipping open his cell, Reno consulted his notes and found the Shera's emergency radio frequency.
"Reno to Shera. Reno to Shera. Acknowledge."
Cid took a drag on his cigarette and moved his boot from the top of the control console to bring his heel down on the TRANSMIT button. "Cid here. Got any materia for us, kid?"
"Forget the materia!" Reno yelled. "Don't head into the sunken city!"
"Ten minutes earlier and that would've been useful advice, Reno. Cloud, Tifa, Yuffie, and Auron're already inside."
"SHIT! Get them out of there!"
Cid sat up and frowned, while the rest of the party gathered around the console. "Why?" Vincent asked. "Looks harmless to me."
"The archaeological team that was trying to get into that city apparently succeeded," Reno said, speaking so fast that he was nearly running his words into one another. "The reason Cloud and Tifa never heard from them again was because all of them went missing right afterward. They're probably dead, and they've been that way for almost a year."
Cid leapt bolt upright; everyone else leaned closer to the radio. Cait Sith chose that moment to start speaking, though there was no movement accompanying it. "Guys, it's Reeve. Signal's a big shaky because there's an ocean in my way, so I'll be brief. When Auron mentioned this yesterday, I started doing some digging through the Shin-Ra restricted databases."
"Have you found something?" Red XIII asked.
"Yes. Sparks's team on it wasn't the first one to find this place."
It was like walking through a bad dream.
Guadosalam appeared much the same as it had the last time Auron had been here. Cheerful colors, the unique Guado architecture.
It was all underwater and there was nobody, no trace of anyone, to be found. The only light was cast by a deep-sea flashlight, as Cloud called the odd torch he'd brought. A long, bright beam of light cut through the darkness ahead of them, but bounced and refracted through the odd crystal substance used in Guadosalam's construction, turning the cave into a phantasmagoric panorama of light and shadow.
"There really is a city here," Yuffie said, apparently too surprised to mind stating the obvious. "Amazing."
"The portal to the Farplane is this way," Auron said, indicating the path.
They began to ascend the curving stone ramp.
"Years ago, a Shin-Ra sub found the entrance to the city," Cait Sith continued. "They sent in two men – one in a diving suit, the other with the standard-issue underwater materia that was in their sub. Apparently, something happened to the man with the materia. He had just enough time to say something about it fading before he imploded from the pressure."
"Fading?" Vincent asked, the first to get over the idea of death by implosion – or not affected by it in the first place. Nobody cared to guess which was the case.
"The man in the diving suit described it like the materia was dissolving into the water around it. When he got back to the sub and reported the existence of this place that eats materia, Shin-Ra naturally classified it and silenced everyone who knew about it. They weren't sure how it might be exploited, but they didn't want anyone else figuring out a way before them, so they left it as it was."
"Thanks for the info," Cid growled at the radio. "Switching frequencies now. Gotta warn Spiky."
"There it is," Auron said.
Before them loomed the portal to the Farplane, still majestic and awe-inspiring even when underwater.
Auron felt a strange tingling across his stomach. He looked down and saw a silvery strand of what looked to his eye like materia drifting from inside his coat.
"What the… my materia's acting weird!" Yuffie exclaimed.
"All of our materia is," Cloud said. "I'm having trouble breathing – what's going on?"
The light on the radio transmitter strapped to his belt began to blink. He grabbed it and held it up to his ear where the sound would be audible.
Faintly, he heard, "CLOUD! GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE! YOUR MATERIA'S GOING TO DISSOLVE!"
The look of shock that blossomed on Cloud's features was all Auron needed to see. He opened his mouth to speak, but felt his throat fail him. He could no longer draw breath. Cloud was trying to say something, but it was no longer audible. Auron felt pressure building up around him. It all added up to one thing: the underwater materia was failing.
Moving without thinking, aware only of the terrible pressure building around him, Auron grabbed Tifa and Yuffie by their collars, slammed his shoulder none too gently into Cloud's chest, and sent them all hurtling toward the portal to the Farplane.
"CLOUD, SAY SOMETHIN'!" Cid roared into the radio. "CLOUD! CLOUD!"
A red diode flashed on the panel. Beneath it, seeming to throb against the wood finish of the console, were the words SIGNAL LOST.
