Brave New World
Brave New World
Chapter 1
Tifa could never remember a place that felt as quiet as this one, wherever it was. She was walking through a long stretch of field, the grass coming up to just above the tops of her boots, but other than her footsteps, there wasn't a single sound. No people, no cars or helicopters, no insects even. It was like she was wearing earplugs and didn't know it.
"Hello?" She finally called out, and winced at the loudness of her own voice in the silence. She half-expected to hear the word bounce back to her off the nearby mountains, but after a moment decided they were too far away, and so she started walking towards the distant building again.
Halfway there she came across a small stream, the water sparkling faintly in what she thought was the morning light, but might have been evening…she had not been awake long enough to see the distant sun move much. She crouched down next to the water and reached out to run her fingers through it, then splashed some of the cold liquid on her face and took a drink from her hands, letting out a small sigh of relief.
Her reflection in the water danced as it slid by, but she could tell she looked alright…better than she felt, at least. Her brown eyes were a little sunken in, and her long brown hair could have used a shower, but nothing looked as injured as all her muscles felt. Whatever that storm had done when it had caught up to her must have been a hell of a workout.
She hoped deftly over the stream, landing with a grunt on the far side. The building was only perhaps half a mile away now, standing tall against the horizon, and the fields left between her and it were filled with an entirely different sort of grass then the other side of the stream had been. Tall and straight, it shimmered and drifted in the sunlight, almost like a green and golden grain rather than grass itself. Perfect for some creature to hide in.
Tifa reached back and unclipped her gloves from her belt, sliding her fingers into the magically reinforced leather and flexing them a few times till the fabric felt comfortable. She couldn't hear anything, she hadn't seen anything, but she had been attacked unexpectedly too many times to take a chance, anymore. Once she was satisfied, she drew in a small breath and started through the field, considering the building as it rose up before her.
It was several hundreds of feet tall, but rather than the cold metal and steel that so many of the Shinra buildings were made from, seemed to be some sort of white stone, and she could see odd blue sections sprouting out in different places, balconies and windows. But the most startling thing was the giant yellow ring that hovered above the top, spinning in a slow circle around the whole structure…a ring that, even as she drew closer, did not seem to be attached to anything.
She couldn't tell if the strange symbols written upon it were for decoration or something that helped keep it up, and she came to a stop perhaps twenty five yards from the building, peering up with her hand over eyes for a few long moments, trying to make sense of it. Whatever it was and whatever it said, it was indeed attached to nothing. It was magic, more than likely, but not like anything she had seen before. Magic was for fighting, not for…architecture.
She grass was much neater at the edge of the building, trimmed down almost to the dirt, and her boots crunched against it and the ground as she circled the building until she found a large gated entranceway. The gate itself was shattered, chunks of the heavy metal frame scattered across the nearby stones and grass, the only half still attacked to the wall hanging at an odd angle on two broken hinges. Whatever had done that had been strong.
There was a golden plaque resting on the stonework a few feet from the entrance, and Tifa made her way over to it, and was surprised to find it was written in a language she could understand!
Welcome to Balamb Garden.
SEED Academy and Military Base
"A Strong Weapon for a Dangerous World."
What is a SEED Academy?
Tifa looked over at the gate again. If it was a military base, the damage could have been from some sort of recent attack. But it looked more like it had been torn up rather than blown up or shot out. It made her think of the damage from when WEAPON had torn up Junon, like a wild animal.
She considered ignoring it all, the gate and the building, and just walking around it, seeing if she could keep going past the mountains and find anything else. But it was here, and…from the silence, probably as empty as everything else. And even if there was a monster here, the creatures she had a problem fighting on her own were few and far between…
Her footsteps echoed on the stone ground as she moved up to the front gate and reached out to press her gloved hand against the part of the gate that was still standing. It gave immediately, but after she'd pushed it open only a few inches, it ripped the rest of the way from the wall with a metallic shriek and collapsed, the noise echoing throughout the nearby building.
Tifa froze as the last of the sound faded away, listening for any evidence that something had heard the commotion and was coming to investigate. But there was nothing…no alarms, no rushing footsteps, no shouts. Just the silence, still. After a count of thirty she let herself relax and stepped carefully through the remains of the gate, picking her way over each bit of metal until she was past, and found herself at the base of a small set of stairs that led into a long, empty stretch of stonework, and beyond it a set of turnstiles that probably led into the heart of the building.
Pushing aside the last of her thoughts of turning back, Tifa started into Balamb Garden.
--
"Squall, I have to try! Nothing else has worked. The sorceress power inside me is all we have left."
"You can't control it, Rinoa. You don't know what will happen if you do this."
"Of course I do. We don't have any other options, so if I do this, I might die, and if I don't do this, I'll definitely die. Now let me go."
"You may not die. We don't even know what the storm does!"
"Yes we do, it destroys everything. We haven't heard a single thing from Galbadia in weeks, or from Esther! And you heard what your father said before the transmission cut off. The storm eats everything. What else can I do?"
"…Fine. Go. But the rest of us are coming with you. We'll summon all the Guardian Forces we have."
"Deal. And..Squall…."
"What is it?"
"If I…if I start to become like…like Ultimicia, you'll…stop me, right?"
"You won't."
"But if I do?"
"I'll stop you. I promise."
Rinoa awoke with a shout of surprise, sitting up quickly and staring around, her dark eyes wide and staring. What was…? She and the others had gone out to…to what? To stop that storm thing. She had...she had drawn out all of her power, she'd felt those beautiful white wings of hers appear, and then…they'd all summoned their powers, and she'd used her magic and…it hadn't even slowed down. It had rolled right over them like they weren't even there, and she'd felt herself fading…she'd thrown a shield around herself, a desperate spell she hadn't even been aware she knew, something from the sorceress memories, and the storm had thrown her up into the sky…
And now she was here. She recognized the Balamb Garden control room, the quiet hums and clicks of the various panels a familiar and somehow reassuring noise. But how had she gotten here?
She gathered her arms and legs beneath her and pushed slowly up onto her feet, twisting around. She was on the lower level of the control room, with the elevator up to the piloting booth behind her…and past it, the massive glass windows, but they were partially shattered, the morning light streaming through the new hole and reflecting prism-like rainbows on the floor. Outside, the scene was very different then she remembered, the long stretch of desert where they had finally stopped running from the storm had been replaced by several large fields, and running alongside a mountain range, with an unfamiliar tower jutting out the side. Where?
Long legs carried Rinoa over to the hole, she reached a hand out to touch it, and noticed the scratches on her palms and forearms, and then the bits of dried blood on the edges of the glass.
She'd fallen through here, at some point, and guarded herself with her arms and hands, but she didn't remember it at all! Two quick steps to the left let her stare at her reflection in the glass. Her shoulder-length black hair was a bit messed, and her blue and black clothing was torn in several places, but other than a few more small cuts on her knees, she seemed fine. Tired, sore, but fine.
So, had the shield saved her, or had the storm just left her here? And where was everyone else?
She spun around and darted back to the elevator, sliding into it and slapping the button that would send her up to the piloting area, and the observation tools that went with it. At the top, most of the controls were dark, but after a few moments of pressing buttons, she was able to bring up the small bay of internal and external monitors. Each flick of the observation switch brought up six more cameras…outside was deserted, as was each section of the garden she checked. Dorms, cafeteria, training, library, entranc-
Just as she was flipping off the entrance camera, she caught a glimpse of movement, something stepping into view from off-screen, and cursed to herself as the system switched to the next set of cameras. She quickly flashed through the rest of the sequence until she was back at the first, in time to see a dark-haired woman she did not recognize crouch down to examine one of large gashes in the wall that had been created when a first-year student had lost control of his guardian force several days previously. It had taken them almost an hour to contain the beast without killing it, and it had injured several people and done a lot of damage to the entranceway and gate area.
But none of that mattered right now. Her friends were gone, Squall is gone, and instead some stranger was trespassing in their school, walking around like she owned the place. Well, that was not going to last much longer. She'd stop by the second floor armory to get a weapon, since her disk-launcher was not here in the control room, and then go find out what the hell was going on.
--
The turnstiles led Tifa to another entranceway, with scattered paths that moved deeper into the building. There were more signs of conflict here, a weapon dropped on the floor and left where it lay, a large scratch, like a cat claw dozens of times larger, ripped through a white wall.
She crouched down to examine the gash, reaching out to trace her gloved finger across one of the claw-indents, but it didn't remind her of any animal she had fought before. It must have been gigantic, at least the size of one of those creatures they could call through material, but it had left no trace besides the damage it had done here and elsewhere. She'd seen no scales or blood or a body, just…debris.
Pushing back to her feet, she turned to consider the flickering map that stood in the middle of the large entrance plaza. It wasn't staying on, from the looks of it part of the mechanism had been damaged, but she could see locations for a cafeteria, a training center, a control room and a library, amongst others. The control room was probably her best bet, if she was going to find anyone here. It was where she would have holed up, if stuck in a place like this all alone.
She wasn't quite willing to admit that no one else was here, though. Surely a massive building like this couldn't be completely abandoned. Not without a bit more evidence then she had found. The front gates probably would have been more open, and there would be warning alarms or some-such on the screens she had passed.
Tifa traced her black-gloved finger tip along the map from where she was to where the control room was…several floors above her, it seemed. But she had seen elevators behind her, at the top of a small set of stairs, and so she started up them now, pausing for a moment before reaching out to press the up-button.
Not five seconds later the doors hissed open, but instead of the empty car she was expecting, Tifa found herself facing down the tip of a wicked looking sword, that almost looked like it had a gun for a handle. A black-haired, baby-faced woman was holding it, and she took a step forward, forcing Tifa back ontop the stairs behind her.
"Who are you? Why are you here?" The woman nearly hissed the question at Tifa, shaking the sword in a vaguely threatening manner. Judging from the way she was holding the blade, Tifa was pretty sure the other wasn't actually familiar with using it, that it had probably been the first convienant weapon she had found before coming to find her. But that didn't make it any less deadly.
Of course, Tifa could probably move around any swing of the blade and disarm the other, but for now she decided to just go with the moment. Perhaps this woman had some idea what was going on? Or she had found herself here just as randomly as Tifa had.
"I…my name is Tifa Lockheart," Tifa held up her gloved hands in a non-threatening manner, palms out and facing the woman. "I woke up on the beach a couple miles back that way, and walked here." She pointed one thumb back over her shoulder without turning. "It was the only building in sight." She kept her gaze level on the other as she said this, considering her best option for attack.
--
Rinoa didn't much like using gunblades, but it had been the only weapon in the armory that felt immediately threatening and that she was even remotely familiar with. Squall had shown her how to swing it and fire it a few times, although she had been paying more attention to him then to the weapon, at the time.
And then she'd gone down to confront the intruder…although now that she had, the woman seemed just as lost as Rinoa felt. Even if she was absolutely sure the other was dangerous, from the way she was standing and holding herself. She reminded her a lot of Zell, really.
"You woke up on the beach? What do you mean?" Rinoa took another step forward, lowering the tip of the gunblade to make sure it remained level with Tifa's head as she backed further down the stairs. "Where are we? How did you move the Garden here?"
Tifa blinked a few times and lowered her hands back down to her sides, and Rinoa realized she really was bombarding the other with questions. "I…didn't move this…'Garden' anywhere. It was here when I got here, I guess. I was running from the storm, and we couldn't stop it, and then I was here. Just like that. I don't know where we are, either."
"The storm? You mean you survived it? How?" Rinoa frowned, lowering the blade a bit further without noticing. However this woman had survived, perhaps she could use it to find the others. Or figure out what had happened "And where did you face it? Galbadia? Esther? You don't look like you're from Esther."
The other woman said nothing to these questions, just staring up at her as she took another step backwards towards the ground. Her eyes were a bit wider than before, as though she were realizing something unpleasant. "I…have no idea what any of those places are. I'm from Neibelheim, and I was just in Midgar when the storm got to us." She drew in a breath and slipped her hands behind her back. "Do you know about those places?"
From the way Tifa asked the question, Rinoa got the impression the woman thought she already knew the answer. But after a moment she shook her head, and lowered the gunblade down a bit more, though she kept her tight grip on the handle. "I've never heard of either of them." It was an odd thing to admit, really. "And I've been to every city in the world."
"So have I. But I've never heard of the places you mentioned either. So what does that mean?" Tifa's usually kind features faded into a frown as she ran the problem around in her mind.
"We aren't from the same world. Or maybe just the same time?" It was odd that Rinoa found the concept of time travel easier to accept than multiple worlds, but really…what was more likely? She'd already traveled through time at least twice. Or more if you tried to understand whatever Ultimicia's Time Compression spell had done.
"Maybe," Tifa shrugged her shoulders, and it seemed she was having just as much issue with that idea as Rinoa did. "But I'd remember this place if I'd seen it before, and I'm sure you would remember Midgar if you had been there. Everyone remembers Midgar." She had half-turned away as she said this, and now her gaze settled back on Rinoa. "Think you could maybe point that sword somewhere else, please? I'm not going to attack you."
Rinoa blinked twice, uncertain what the woman meant, and then stared at the sword in her hands as though she had forgotten it was there. "Oh! Sorry." Her arm dropped down to her side, the tip of the long blade tapping against the floor. "Just had too many odd things happen, not very good at trusting people."
"It's alright," Tifa offered her a bit of a smile and shook her head, a few strands of her long hair scattering about her face. "I know how you feel. So do you recognize any of this place or the stuff outside?"
"This is Balamb Garden, it's where I live," Rinoa waved her arm and the sword around vaguely, as if indicating the building surrounding them. "But the mountains outside and that tower are new. This isn't even where we landed when the storm-" She was cut off suddenly by a massive explosion of sound from outside of the building, like someone had just tried to slam one mountain into another. There was no movement, no vibration, just the sound, growing louder and louder with each passing second.
The two women exchanged startled glances, and then as one took off towards the front of the school.
--
As they reached the front of the school, both women picking their way over the wreckage of the front gate, they found themselves staring at what looked like a smaller version of the black storm that had consumed both their worlds. It was maybe the size of the building they were standing in, and was running along the side of the mountain, whirling around like a contained tornado, sucking up everything it passed. Rocks, boulders, even sections of the mountain itself were ripped up into the storm only to disappear into the black clouds.
"What is it doing?" Rinoa asked, and Tifa just shook her head as she watched, uncertain how to answer. "It's much smaller."
"It doesn't seem to be coming this way, but…maybe we should run…" Tifa said quietly, her eyes narrowing as she watched the mass of moving clouds scour up the cliffs. It was headed straight for the metal and stone tower that was sticking out of the mountains at a sharp angle.
"No, look," Rinoa pointed the sword at the tower, and as they watched, the storm slammed into it, enveloping the building in darkness. And then it stopped there, hovering over the now invisible tower before slowly dissipating up into the sky. As it faded away, there was only a massive hole stuck in the side of the cliff face where the tower had stood moments before. No debris, no visible signs of damage, the tower was just gone.
"It…did the storm take it away? Or destroy it?" Rinoa finally asked as the last of the noise faded into silence, and the air all around them stilled.
"I don't know. Maybe that's what it did to this place? And me?" Tifa wasn't even sure what she was asking, but it made sense in a twisted sort of way. If the storm could move things, it was possible it had moved both her and this garden place here from other places. Other worlds? It was a hard concept to wrap her mind around.
Rinoa didn't respond, just staring at the spot where the tower had vanished. "I don't know either. But if you're right, it could have done that to other people too. Other places. They could be just over the mountains for all we know."
"Or on the other side of the planet," Tifa added, feeling a remarkable amount of pessimism welling up inside of her. If the storm could move buildings across worlds, then…there was no telling what else it could do. For all they knew, the two women might have been the only people anywhere.
"Maybe, but maybe not. Come on, we can try to see if we can reach anyone?" Rinoa started back into the building.
"Reach anyone?" Tifa asked as she turned to follow the blue-clad woman.
"You'll see!"
--
Rinoa led the other through the school and up into the Garden's control room again, stopping in front of the massive bank of controls that dictated all the various things that the mechanical school could do. She plopped down in front of one of them and began flicking various switches, trying to remember everything that Quistis had explained about how to use them.
"There's a sort of…magical radio, here." Rinoa said as she tapped at the buttons, trying to decide what to scan for first. "It could reach all the way around our world, no matter what the weather conditions. We could talk to Esther from Galbadia, even!" She turned to the other, as though waiting for her to be impressed, but Tifa just sort of shrugged at her. "Oh, right, not that you would know how far that is. Well…it's far, trust me." She gave a little grin, feeling a bit better, honestly. Maybe it was just the fact that she had something to do, someone to talk to, that was helping to improve her mood. She wasn't completely alone, that had to count for something.
"Kind of like a cell phone," Tifa said, her hand slipping into her pocket to fish her own phone out, but it was still displaying the 'no service' message she had seen just before the storm had hit her. "Well, a cell phone that works."
"If you say so," Rinoa glanced at the little machine for a moment, then back to the controls, finally pressing a bright red button and pulling a nearby microphone to her lips. "This is Balamb Garden to anyone who can hear me, please respond. We have survived the…the…" She frowned, glancing up at Tifa and then putting a hand over the mic. "What do we call this storm thing?"
"Uhm," Tifa shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. "The storm? The Black Storm, maybe?"
Rinoa rolled her eyes and then turned back to the mic. "We have survived the Black Storm, if anyone else is still out there, please, respond." She leaned back in her seat and waited, staring at all the dials and controls that would sparkle to life when someone returned their call. Ten seconds, twenty, fifty, a minute…and she slumped a little in her seat. "Maybe their radio just doesn't work."
"Or they aren't out there. Or they don't have a radio," Tifa added, uncertain if she was trying to be realistic or reassuring. "Maybe we should just go out and start looking, do you guys have any cars or-"
The lights on the control suddenly shimmered to life, and the room was filled with a thick, unpleasant staticy sound. Rinoa grabbed at the receiver and shoved the volume up as high as she could. "Hello? Hello?"
There was a long pause in the white noise, and then she thought she could almost make out a sound, a deeply distorted voice pushing through. If only she knew how to clean up the transmission like she had seen Xu do on any number of occasions.
"…bzzzrt…is…hello? I am-strrrrrt…found…a…….zrrrrrrn-ing….igar…ship…need assi…" The voice was probably male, and cut off briefly at a loud noise in the background, almost like an explosion, and for several seconds there was nothing. "…leas…cannot help…yone?!" ZORT With a crackling of static and a spark that arced across the panel, the transmission cut off.
Both women stared at the control panel, as if willing the transmission to return, but after thirty seconds it was obvious the silence was the only answer they were going to get.
"Can you find out where that was coming from?" Tifa leaned past Rinoa, tapping her gloved fingers across the controls, and Rinoa had to lightly bat them away as she tried to remember which buttons would do that.
"I…think so?" She flicked several switches, and a readout sprang to life at the top, displaying a set of directional numbers and distance information that didn't make any sense to Rinoa. "I…they're all wrong, like the machine is confused, but I am pretty sure that it came from about thirty miles north of here, past the mountains."
"Thirty miles. Alright. Do you have an airship?" Tifa leaned back from the controls, pressing the fingers of her right hand into her left, which Rinoa guessed was an nervous habit. Maybe she was just happy to have something to focus on. "Or even an off-road car?"
Rinoa grinned and shook her head. "No, but we have something even better." Rinoa slid out of her chair, shooing Tifa to the side as she skidded over to the piloting controls. "Now, I haven't had to do this by myself, but I do know how." Her hands darted over the controls, feeling the deep thrum of initializing engines far below them.
"Do what?" Tifa came up next to her, reaching out to press a hand into a nearby pipe to steady herself as the entire structure shook. "The building feels like it's moving."
"Moving nothing. It's going to fly." Rinoa gave a wicked looking grin and threw the ignition switch. There was a deep, resounding throb that shook the entire building, and then it stopped, there was a sound like a large machine powering down, and then silence.
"Fly, huh?" Tifa raised a dark eyebrow and looked outside. "It doesn't do it very well."
"It usually does," Rinoa frowned and tapped the key that Xu used to run diagnostics, and after a moment a schematic popped up on the screen with a flashing area of pipe circled, and a large X through it. Rinoa tapped at it for a moment, pressed a couple of keys, and then turned to Tifa.
"Someone needs to go reroute that fuel line. How are you in a fight?"
Tifa just smiled, "Not bad. Why?"
Turning back to the panel, Rinoa reached under it and tugged out a radio headset, tossing it to the brunette. "There used to be monsters down below the school, I don't know if they stuck around when everything else disappeared. I'll walk you through where to go."
--
"You know, it just occurred to me that I have no idea what your name is," Tifa spoke in half-whispers through the headset as she stepped out of the Balamb elevator and into the bowls of the garden. Pipes and walkways stretched out before her, a maze of metal and wire that really reminded her of the tunnels beneath Midgar.
"I'm Rinoa Heartlily, follow the blue lights," came the other woman's slightly static-filled voice through the headset, and above Tifas head a string of blue lights blinked to life, leading off through the tunnels to the west.
"Well, it is nice to meet you, Rinoa." Tifa said as she started after the blinking lights, one head tilted to the side to listen for any noises that meant the monsters Rinoa had warned her about were around.
"You too. Stop at the end of the blue path and tell me if there's a yellow light on the wall? The panel says there should be but I can't tell if it's working or not."
"Alright," Tifa picked her way through the silent maze of metal until she found the terminal, tapping at it. "There are two yellow lights, not one. So what sort of monsters are down here, anyway?
"Uhm," there was a pause, and Tifa thought she could hear the sound of switches being thrown. "Some monsters that spit oil, and some fire bugs that eat the machinery. Tell me if one of the lights go out." The panel suddenly sparked twice and Tifa bounced backwards, holding her hands up to protect her face.
When the sparking stopped, Tifa lowered her face and sighed. "Now both lights are out."
"Damn it, hold on," Rinoa went silent for a few moments, and Tifa turned to survey the area around her. The blue lights stopped where she was, but a few running lights along her feet revealed several paths leading deeper into the bowls of the machinery. Until she had come down here, she hadn't really believed that the massive building was really going to take off, but from the size and scope of all this machinery, it was certainly possible. It reminded her of the machinery they used to move the Sister Ray, really. And that had been at least as big as this.
Behind her, she heard the familiar tinged ring of a light bulb coming to life, and turned to see the top yellow light flickering to life. "Alright, one yellow light on," she said, pressing the headset into her ear.
"Oh, really? Well, good! Back to following the blue lights." Rinoa seemed oddly cheerful as she said this, and Tifa had a hunch the girl was not as good with all these machines as she was pretending. One of the paths Tifa had been looking at before was suddenly bathed in the blue glow from another row of lightbulbs.
"It shouldn't be too far," Rinoa's voice continued to accompany Tifa as she picked her way through the machines. "We're just looking for a break in one of the energy lines so we can bypass it."
"What's this place run on, anyway?" Tifa asked as she stopped to consider a small leap in the path before tossing herself across it.
"No idea, really. Magical something-or-other, plus oil. Xu explained it to me once but I wasn't really listening." Rinoa sounded bored just thinking about it, and Tifa could imagine.
"We used to have a power source called Mako, back home. It was magical energy too, but it turned out it was actually like…souls. Spirit energy. There was a big battle before we stopped using it."
"Oh, well, I don't think we have anything quite like that, really. I'm not actually sure, but no one has ever said it was bad. Sometimes we have to go to Esther to refuel though, because it's hard to-"
"Quiet, hold on." Tifa hissed into the microphone as the silence of the machines was broken by a sort of…hissing slurp noise, like a drunkard at her bar on his twelfth drink of the night. She ducked down, moving forward slowly.
"What is it? You should be coming up on the fuel break," Rinoa spoke in a whisper, and even that felt too loud as Tifa snuck her way around the next corner, and into a larger, almost round with a tower in the center that was covered in shattered windows and broken control panels. And off to the side of the room, stretched out across a dozen wires and pipes, was the largest white slug that Tifa had ever seen, oil dripping out from underneath it onto puddles on the floor. The slurping noise was definitely coming from the beast.
"The…the oil creatures you mentioned before, are they large, white, slug-looking things?" Tifa kept her mouth and the microphone hidden behind her hand to muffle the sound as she watched the beast, but it seemed so intent on its meal that it probably wouldn't have noticed her anyway.
"Yeah, why? Are they down there?"
"Well, there's one at least, but it's…big. Twenty feet long, at least. It's eating your fuel line."
"Oh wow, it must have been down there a while. None of them were that big when we got the engines running the first time." Rinoa sounded distant again. "Do you think you can kill it?"
"Probably. Give me a minute, I'm going to take my headset off." Tifa reached up to tug the radio off and fold it up, tucking it into the front pocket of her apron as she started out into the large room, her brown eyes settled on the creature. If it was full of oil, fire would have been her best bet…except she'd probably end up lighting all the other oil on fire too, and blowing up the whole school. She wasn't even sure what other material she had, honestly, or even if it would all work here.
So instead she just balled her hands into fists, and charged.
Two messy minutes later, Tifa felt the satifying squish as she shoved her boot through the slug creatures brain, and it let out an almost plaintive squeal before flopping dead to the floor beneath her. The room was bathed in oil and goo now, and she could feel the ooze on her clothes and in her hair. But the pipe was clear now, and didn't even seem to have a hole it in. However the creatures was siphoning the liquid away, it hadn't done any permanent damage.
She wiped her gloves off on the front of her skirt and then tugged the headset bac out and slipped it onto her ear. "Rinoa?"
"Hey! You okay?" Rinoa sounded a bit concerned, and Tifa couldn't blame her. It was probably a frightening thought to be all alone in this world, after they'd found each other.
"Yeah, I'm fine, just kind of messy, and I really need a shower," Tifa had a bit of a grin on her face, like she always did after a fight. "Try the machine again."
"Alright, hold on." Rinoa disappeared from the line for a few moments, and then suddenly many of the machines around Tifa sprung to life, lights and rings and clangs, and a deep thrum shook the floor beneath her and almost knocked Tifa off her feet. She had to grab onto the wall behind her until the vibrations steadied themselves.
"Alright, it's working!" Tifa could actually hear the grin in Rinoa's voice when the other returned. "The blue lights will lead you back out."
--
Rinoa's mood was easing up now that she could feel the familiar vibrations of Garden's flight engines echoing through the room, and she slid her chair from one panel to the next as she tried to run the ship through all the pre-flight checks that she remembered. Everything seemed to be fine now that the fuel line was working again.
"Is everything working?" Tifa's voice echoed through the control area, and Rinoa glanced back to see the woman stepping off the elevator, and trying to ring spots of oil out of her long brown hair.
"I think so. We'll know in a minute, anyway." Rinoa pushed out of her chair and over to the steerage control. "You may want to hold onto something, though." She called back to the other as she set one hand on the massive wheel, and then pressed the final ignition switch down along the side.
The entire building lurched beneath their feet, and then high above the massive yellow ring that circled the tower began to lower itself down, fading through the metal and stone of the outer sections of the school and then vanishing into the ground beneath them. And as it pushed down, it shoved Balamb up into the air, the entire structure hauling itself into the sky.
Once enough of the building had freed itself from the ground, the shuddering faded back into the familiar background vibration of the flight engines, and Rinoa allowed herself to relax. Now that Balamb was actually in the air, it would be a lot easier to keep it there. Provided they weren't attacked or anything, of course.
Tifa came up next to the other woman, her gloved hands back to trying to push as much of the oil from her hair, and Rinoa winced as droplets of it splattered on the control room floor. "So how long will it take us to get to where the transmission came from?
Rinoa frowned at the controls before her, and then spun the wheel, slowly turning the Garden towards the north. "I don't know. Maybe an hour or so?"
"Alright, then point me in the direction of the nearest shower, please."
(( Thus endeth chapter 1, and we leave the girls to enjoy their short flight! Soon, chapter 2, which may follow Tifa and Rinoa, or switch to some of our other, so far unknown heroes…. So, review! Good review, bad review, I take them all! It's just nice to know people are reading. Keeps me motivated! ))