A/N: Hello everyone; Firstly a big hello to Francesca – thanks for the review ;) And another hello to Aozora – hope you are feeling better – and now to an apology. This chapter is a little bit of a cop-out. It has gone through multiple re-writes mostly because I felt decidedly uncomfortable writing my usual heavy description of disasters after the recent tragedies to strike both Haiti and Chile. Stories should be escapism, exciting, but ultimately removed from reality. While I know nothing I could ever write would touch upon the disaster to befall those two countries, I do not want to belittle such things even inadvertently, in my stories. So I decided to change the direction of this story a little. The major plot won't change. I am just choosing not to dwell too much on the Draklor rescue. I apologise if this makes the chapter less than it should be, and thought I owed anybody reading an explanation.

Now then, on with the show……

Draklor: Upper Tower Floors – Not now but not that long ago

Eirik Bjorndagen had a very bad feeling about all this. The fourth son of the ambassador for the Hinterland in Archades Eirik had never really been the sort to promote his own interests, or offer an opinion. He was happy to follow most often, but right now he was beginning to suspect following was not such a wise course of action. Byron's idea was pure madness. There was no other way to describe it. Yes, Eirik was all in favour of going to the rescue of Director Bunansa, very much so, but surely when one is engaged in a perilous rescue situation one should employ a certain amount of caution? Dead men do not make good rescuers after all, and if they were not very careful Byron's plan was going to get them all killed.

'But the prototype is not stable!' Abetunde Lethwaito-Umbiowe, prince of the Pessia lands, and generally known to his fellow Draklor students as Abe, was currently in the process of trying to dissuade Byron from this newest and most ill-advised notion.

'You heard the Director and Mistress Fran; even he did not know what affect the new Sunstone engine would have on the flight and handling capacities of the craft! You could kill us all!'

'Or we could be the ones to single-handedly rescue the Director, and gain Empire wide recognition for our ingenuity and bravery!' Byron Kendell Massey the third turned around to glower daggers at the tall, ebon skilled prince of Pessia. Short, slightly dumpy and fussily dressed in too much embroidered fabric for his short stature to take, Byron should have been the one to be intimidated. Alas the Archades born shipping magnate's son had never lacked for verve or confidence. 'Good gods man! Think of the opportunity. Bunansa will be forced to acknowledge us if we are the ones to save his life.'

'This isn't an opportunity you dolt,' Selphie Gainsborough, the only female in their mismatched cohort, stepped up and whacked Byron around the back of the head. 'This is a bloody disaster, not a chance for social climbing. The Director could be dead for all we know!'

Instantly a heavy silence descended on their group. All of them were in awe of Director Bunansa, a man who wore his legend with ill-tempered but indisputable élan. That each of their cohort remained completely unknown to the man who could make their careers with a few kind words of praise, was perhaps the greatest source of distress any of the four privileged young people had ever known. All the same as the silence progressed Eirik became uncomfortably aware of the groaning creaks and masonry growls rumbling through the building. It was a very visceral reminder that they were standing in a building that had just been hit by an earthquake, which in itself was hardly an ideal place to be.

'Whatever we are going to do, we should do it quick.' Eirik was not the only one surprised to find that it was he who had spoken so succinctly.

'Right,' Byron seized once more upon the opportunity to take command. 'Selphie, you're the most nimble, and you know the upper floors best. You go scout out the upper tower, see if you can find the Director – and if the stairs are even useable.'

The Ionian frowned suspiciously; she and Byron were always locked in a barely amiable battle for supremacy. 'What are you going to do?'

'We'll wait here, of course.' Bryon spoke as if oblivious to the fact that parts of the building were on fire. 'This hangar seems secure for now. If you're not back in a half hour me, Abe, and Eirik will take the proto-cab and fly straight for the top of the tower to find you and the Director.' Byron beamed at Selphie, managing to appear both smug and enthusiastic. 'I've got the utmost confidence in you, Selph, I know you'll have the Director in tow by the time we've got this girl flying,' he slapped the outer shell of the Director's new toy. Byron's smile grew even wider in the face of Selphie's wavering suspicion. 'We'll just be the transportation; you'll be the real hero.'

'Well,' the girl hesitated but it was clear the idea had appeal; each one of the cohort would gladly chew off a finger or two for an opportunity to speak with the Director one to one. Selphie glanced almost eagerly towards the door to the hangar. 'Maybe you have a point…..'

Eirik shook his head; while it was true that he harboured dreams of having his skills recognised by the director he at least knew they were just that. He knew that he would never take a ride in the Strahl, or have the opportunity to walk in stride beside the great Bunansa. Alas Selphie and Byron did not occupy the same reality he did. As he watched Selphie dash off with the intention of climbing into danger instead of down to safety, Eirik's bad feelings only grew. Yes indeed, he had a very bad feeling about this whole venture. It was simply staggering how the very best of intentions could produce such stunningly stupid results – especially where the cohort were involved.

Draklor: The Evacuation

Researchers, physicians, healers, infantrymen and Nabradian patients milled around in a somewhat dazed stupor in the wide open spaces of Grand Arcade. Efficient nurses buzzed from one group of stretcher beds to another administering to their charges with the same professionalism and unruffled calm they had always employed while inside the corridors of Draklor. The recently re-installed Draklor guard contingent did their level best to maintain some semblance of order and coordinate the evacuation, while secretly hoping no one would think to blame them for allowing the laboratory to fall down on their watch.

All eyes however eventually climbed back to the heights of the tower Cidolfus built. Plumes of ugly black smoke belched forth from crater holes in the exterior walls and the angry shadow light of sulphur orange flame could be seen dancing in the depths of those gaping open wounds. The flotilla of commandeered sky cabs rising in a haze around the tower rather unfortunately resembled a buzzing swarm of flies circling fresh carrion.

The Strahl, a beautiful moth amid all those insects, broke free of the mooring bays with another full cabin of evacuees. Vaan managed not to fully dock the ship on the ground and instead kept her in a hovering mooring just above the rooftop of one of the surrounding buildings as soldiers and physicians rushed in to escort injured or just frightened people away to safety. There was a quiet pall of expectation hanging in the air as the sun began to wane in the sky, turning cerulean blue raw and bloody. Everyone was waiting for the building to fall.

'We're doing the right thing,' Penelo said for the umpteenth time as she resumed her seat (Fran's seat) after making sure the entry hatch was securely closed. Vaan jerked the steering levers and nudged the Strahl into the air once more, headed back to Draklor. 'We had to help get people evacuated.'

'Yeah,' Vaan kept his eyes dead ahead waiting for the sky cabs criss-crossing in front of the holes in the tower to part and allow the Strahl clear access to the building. 'I know. It's just……'

'He's not dead.' Penelo said firmly. 'I'll bet you a million gil Balthier's elbow deep in some kind of mechanism, ordering Nono about while he does something or other to make sure the laboratory doesn't fall down.'

'Yeah,' Vaan smiled a little in answer to the determinedly light hearted look Penelo was giving him. 'I just wish we could dock up there and go and see!'

Penelo sighed, 'I know.'

Circling around the building in the Strahl both Rabanastrans felt, if not helpless, then horribly frustrated. It wasn't safe to attempt to dock the Strahl on any of the higher floors of the tower as the structure wasn't safe and there was no telling what would happen if stray exhaust fumes from the Strahl mixed with the noxious smoke and glossair fires beginning to engulf every floor above sixty. The sky cabs, smaller and lighter, could get closer, nipping in and out of the wider holes to pluck lucky survivors out of the wreckage before the fumes and flames could consume them. Had it not been for the fact that Balthier would literally come back from the dead to beat the pair of them senseless for endangering his ship, Vaan and Penelo would have risked a docking all the same.

'Vaan.' Just one word and she really didn't want to say anything at all. Still Penelo knew deep down that they needed to helping with the sick and the injured, taking the Strahl out beyond the Imperial city in case people needed help in the surrounding towns and villages. They needed to act like the crew of the Strahl should act; they had a legend to maintain. All the same Penelo didn't like it. She'd feel so much better if Fran was in Draklor with Balthier, which was silly of course, because then she'd be worried about both of them and not just one of them. Maybe it was just the fact that Balthier's air of invulnerability had been seriously dented over this last year.

'I know, Penelo. I know.' Vaan's hands clenched on the steering levers reflexively and Penelo wondered for a moment if he could hear her thoughts. Then again, of course he could. She smiled and placed her own hand over his as his knuckles whitened on the steering levers. 'He promised.' She reminded Vaan.

He stirred and steered the Strahl away from the building, 'You're right. He did.' Vaan's shoulders straightened a little and he smiled just a bit.

'Right,' Penelo nodded grinning. 'So we'll just get on with making sure everyone's safe. Balthier will be fine.'

Vaan's smile slipped a bit and then returned with more firmness. 'Right, he promised; no more dying.' As he turned the Strahl away, towards the rest of the city where he and Penelo were needed more, Vaan allowed the memory of that particular promise to reassure the doubts inside him.

'I beg your pardon?' Balthier, surrounded by bits of airship and remora parts looked up, a fistful of blueprints in one hand and a dangerously large wrench in the other. Vaan stood his ground as the older man scowled at him. Crossing his arms over his chest the Rabanastran decided that it was now or never.

'If you want me to take the Strahl you have to promise me you'll take it back. That means no dying, or nearly dying; right?'

'If I want you to take the Strahl….? What is this nonsense?' Balthier trailed off, eyes narrowing somewhat dangerously. 'Hmm, so much for loyalty amid one's crew; well then, Vaan, if you don't want her don't take her.' The Archadian had turned back to whatever great oily lump of metal something-or-other he had been pulling apart when Vaan had wandered into the Draklor engineering lab.

Vaan wasn't sure exactly what it was that made him so angry. He was used to Balthier being, well, Balthier and acting like the whole world hadn't gone horribly wrong only a few months before; acting like he hadn't nearly died. Vaan was even used to Balthier's lazy insults and the bored, indifferent way the other man had of ordering him about. None of that bothered Vaan, none of that had ever bothered Vaan. Until now. Reaching out one arm he grabbed Balthier by the cotton sleeve and jerked the other man around to face him.

'That's not good enough.'

Vaan wasn't sure who was more surprised Balthier, whose heavy lidded eyes widened perceptible before flicking rather pointedly to the hand Vaan still had clasped around his bicep, or Vaan himself. There was a moment when pirate and sort-of apprentice really looked at each other, a moment when a lot of things could have happened, and then Balthier relaxed very carefully where he stood, released a tired sigh and almost gently twitched his arm out of Vaan's hold.

'Right then,' the older man quirked an eyebrow, 'I am going to assume that this rather rough handling is not a precursor to open revolt, and instead suggests that Fran was right, once again.' Balthier brushed his own hand over the Rozzarian cotton covering his arm, as if worried Vaan's hand had left a stain. 'Whatever bee is in your bonnet, Vaan, let's hear it.'

'I don't have a bonnet.' The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. Despite what most people thought, Vaan wasn't a fool. He just occasionally said very foolish things. Balthier, familiar with the waffling nonsense that passed for conversation in his only half acknowledged protégé, gave the younger man a droll look and fished a handkerchief from inside the constraints of his gilded vest. There was some grease on his fingers he did not want staining his shirt.

'Couerl got your tongue, hmm?' Shooting a sly look towards an angry and mottle faced Vaan Balthier worked the grease out from under his fingernails with a pinched fold of the handkerchief. 'No matter; I dare say we are all far the richer for your silence.'

'Shut up,' Vaan snapped and Balthier watched him with the cool interest of a silver lobo sizing him up for lunch. Vaan flushed an unhealthy crimson colour. 'I mean- just stop talking! I have something to say to you.' He almost growled the last words in his flustered state, yet what he really wanted to say refused to budge from the tip of his tongue. He and Penelo had talked about it once the battle for Balfonheim and everything had started to settle down. They'd argued between the two of them about which one of them should say something to Balthier. In the end Penelo had won and that was why Vaan stood here now, rubbing fiercely at the back of his neck hard enough to give himself friction burns.

'So you intimate,' Balthier watched Vaan curious to see if the youth would pluck up the courage to really upbraid him as he so clearly wanted to do. 'Yet I appear to be the only one actually speaking.'

Moving across the engineering lab to perch on one of the lab tables Balthier pocketed the handkerchief and folded his arms across his chest. This was all damnably unfair; not three months shy from escaping death and the potential enslavement to the whims of a bitter semi-divinity, and still he received no respite. Oh no indeed, instead a seemingly endless cast of supporting players from Nono's extended family to bloody desert royalty had taken it upon themselves to censure him for the audacity of upsetting them all with his personal calamities. Now it seemed Vaan was itching to add his own two gil worth to the pot. Except of course bloody Ratsbane had yet to gather the gumption to spit the damn words out. Balthier did not enjoy being criticised at the best of times, but he hated waiting for someone to criticise him even more. The fact that he somewhat believed Vaan had some partial justification to take such an attitude with him was the only reason Balthier was tolerating this whole silly business at all. Still there was a limit to his generosity. Finally just as Balthier was losing patience with the whole sorry debacle, the former street thief found his voice once again.

'I don't want to be your replacement.'

Ah-ha, so here it came. Balthier bit back a smile. 'Indeed? Good for you. Now we have that settled be a good lad and sod off, would you?' Balthier's smile had much in common with the gaping maws of angry hyenas and his tone could at best be described as venomous.

Vaan scraped his foot across the floor, making the polished stone squeak. Balthier gritted his teeth and bit back the desire to tell him, rather pointedly, not to do that. 'Fran said……when you were, after the whole Phoenix thing when you were still……' the youth trailed off.

'When I was otherwise dead?' Balthier smirked, 'Or at least performing a masterful facsimile of such.' It would have been amusing how unwilling his varied acquaintances and associates could be when it came to openly discussing that unfortunate period around him, had it not been so terribly tedious. He was the one who had nearly died, yet Balthier had no trouble calling a spade a spade and a failed suicide attempt a damned lucky break. 'Well then; what did Fran say, hmm?'

Vaan's cheeks were red. 'She said that I,' the youth swallowed. 'She said the leading man needed to go on, and that I could, you know, be the leading man if……' again he stopped.

'She said that, did she?' Balthier allowed a measure of the surprise he felt to touch his expression. 'Hmm; it's not often Fran misreads a situation quite so dramatically.'

Vaan looked up and Balthier met his eyes. 'You don't want me to, you know, take over from you, or anything?' The poor simpleton asked again looking perfectly hopeful. The jaded former pirate resisted the desire to cuff him across the head and send him on his way.

'Vaan,' Balthier sighed, 'Ignoring the question of whether such a metamorphosis was even possible; I have worked industriously over the years to make a reputation that is quite without compare or parallel after all,' The smirk he offered received a wane, vaguely embarrassed smile in return. 'I assure you that the thought of you replacing me as the Strahl's captain fills me with a queasy unease that would necessitate I live a hundred years simply to ensure such a fate could never come to pass.'

Vaan perked up instantly, 'Really?'

Balthier rather theatrically pressed his hand (freshly cleaned of offending oily stains) to his chest. 'With the utmost sincerity, I assure you.'

Vaan gave him a rather wary look, 'Promise? You promise that you're not giving me the Strahl so you and Fran can disappear or anything like that?'

'I am not giving you my bloody ship in the first place,' Balthier retorted sharply before reining in his annoyance. 'I am loaning you the use of my vessel as your own is barely fit to furnish the wares of the lowest vulgar scrap dealer.'

Vaan seemed much improved in outlook, bless the dim-witted former urchin, nevertheless he still lingered somewhat expectantly. 'You still need to promise.'

'Oh for the gods' own sake,' Balthier's fingers twitched. 'Promise what?' He demanded.

'Promise that you'll take back the Strahl yourself, and that you won't die or anything; at least not for years, anyway.'

Balthier stared at the moon faced Rabanastran who, in turn, stared back at him with placid and indomitable determination. Exasperation and some small measure of surprise simmered inside Balthier as he considered Vaan for a long moment.

'If I submit to this promise will you bugger off and leave me be?' He asked finally.

'Well yeah,' Vaan said sounding surprised, 'Of course.'

Balthier sighed, 'Very well then. I promise I will reclaim the Strahl, in person, from your custodianship at a time of my choosing very much alive and in sound body,' He quirked an eyebrow pointedly. 'Now will you bloody well go and let me work, or do I need to shoot you and ensure you do not usurp my position that way?'

Draklor: Sixty-Eighth Floor - A Less than Stellar Rescue

Ffamran (Balthier) Bunansa watched yet another highly improbable, vaguely ridiculous death approaching him at break neck speed and found that he just didn't have the passion for this sort of nonsense anymore.

'Oh this is just ruddy marvellous.'

The runaway sky cab avoided splattering both Balthier and Selphie by mere inches as it smashed through the wall of the shattered corridor and into one of the labs beyond. Balthier, pressed into the rubble littering the corridor with Selphie underneath him, could hear the slaughtered pig squeals of brakes being somewhat desperately applied. He closed his eyes and waited for an explosion he was decidedly surprised to discover did not come. Extremely cautious, and more than a trifle afraid that he might be about to lose his head, Balthier looked up and around him, hauling himself up into a half upright position so he could peer through the mortar dust into the fresh hole left by the cab.

The sky cab had eventually come to rest in the rubble of an aeronautics teaching lab amid the wreckage of lab tables and steel backed stools. As the dust sifted downward in motes and drifts one of the sky cab's side doors slid back and open to the sound of rapidly cooling engines.

'A-ha! There see, I told you it would stop!'

A rather short and over-weight youth wearing a truly hideous lilac paisley embroidered frock coat and a lime green shirt with purple cravat half jumped and half fell from the cab into the rubble of the lab. He was followed by a tall, very lean young man with skin as dark as obsidian and hair braided and bejewelled with a multitude of beads. The final person to leave the cab was a blocky, muscular blonde youth with nearly translucent pale skin and a pensive cast to his face.

Balthier, thoroughly non-plussed, peered at the three young people with rather intent bemusement. Smith, buzzing down from its safe haven hovering about the ceiling dropped into a protective position before the hole in the interior wall and swept the three youths up and down with that one lethal red laser eye.

'Bloop,' Said the Rook and never had one mechanised syllable promised so much menace. Three pairs of eyes all blinked in surprise.

'Director Bunansa!' The pudgy boy surged forwards and then stopped when he noticed Selphie unconscious in Balthier's arms. 'What……what's happened?'

Balthier quirked one single eyebrow and regarded the three youths with a very level stare. 'Hmm yes, that does appear to be the question of the hour, does it not?' When the director of Draklor favoured the three boys with a smile, it was anything less than pleasant. 'Perhaps you gentleman would care to tell me, hmm?'

It could be said, with no little sincerity, that the former notorious sky pirate Balthier was anything but amused. The three young men all stared at one another; a dance of skittish regards and silently desperate looks. It was almost possible to hear young dreams and ambitions crumbling to dust in the face of the stark reality that the ire of director Bunansa was a pure and terrible thing indeed.

'I'm waiting,' the scourge of pirate kind murmured in a deceptively cool voice and the little fat lad in the truly appalling attire, who had the misfortune of being the evident leader of this group, found himself forced to account for his actions.

'Er, well, we're here to rescue you sir.' The tubby boy stammered. Balthier sighed and rolled his eyes.

'Save me from fools and their rescues,' shaking his head he checked Selphie's pulse and beckoned the boys forward. 'Right then, if you're about a rescue jump to it. Or must I give instruction, hmm?'

Three pairs of eyes stared at him and three young faces looked at him uncomprehending. Balthier sighed again. 'Take the girl and put her in the bloody cab.' He enunciated with deadly patience. 'Good gods, what do they teach you children in Akademy these days?'

Jumping into startled action the slack-jawed children came to fetch the girl, and just as they did so, Nono wriggled out from under the piece of drywall he was hiding under. 'Kupo – are we leaving now?' Balthier scoped him up and started the arduous process of dragging himself upright. 'So it would appear.' He wavered on his feet and immediately found the pale blonde boy at his side, hovering solicitously.

'Do you need a hand, sir?'

Somewhat lightheaded Balthier almost laughed, 'My hands are quite dandy, thank you. Should you happen to have a spare torso however that would be appreciated.' He looked down with a scowl at his blood saturated vest, 'Mine appears to be somewhat in need of drastic repair.'

The pale boy just stared at him tongue-tied and Balthier sighed, forcing his rubbery legs to carry his own weight towards the sky cab. 'Who in the blazes are you anyway?' He asked almost conversationally, glancing over to where Smith had taken it upon itself to supervise the loading of the injured Selphie into the cab. The boy, skipping along beside him stumbled to a stop, gaping.

'I……we……' he swallowed. 'Eirik. My name is Eirik, sir.'

'Well Eirik, how is it that you came to be flying my prototype through walls, hm?' Balthier glanced at him. 'A student, are you?'

'Er, yes. Yessir I am.' The boy pursed his lips and seemed to draw himself up. 'We're the Cohort, sir.'

Balthier cocked his head to the side, somehow he suspected he was going to regret asking this next question, 'The cohort?'

'Yessir,' the boy nodded vigorously. 'We're your cohort.' The boy stood so ramrod straight it appeared someone had hooked him up by an invisible hook from the crown of his skull. It appeared very much as if the boy was a mere quiver from a full salute.

How very……odd.

Balthier had the disturbing feeling of standing on the metaphorical edge of a very steep cliff and looking down into the abyss as he studied the youth before him. In fact for a dreadful moment he was powerfully reminded of Vaan when he had first thrown the boy off Rabanastre's palace balcony. This alone was cause for considerable alarm. Still, conversational mores demanded he respond to the statement. Fully aware he was going to regret this probably very, very soon, Balthier committed what could only be considered conversational suicide. 'My cohort, you say?' The boy nodded and Balthier's heart sank. This was precisely the reason he distained contact with the student body of Draklor. They were all bloody peculiar. 'Hm, I wasn't aware I had any such thing.'

The boy's pale eyes were huge and luminous, filled with a near fanatical zeal. Balthier found it highly disturbing. 'Oh you do, sir.' The boy insisted as earnest as the day was long. 'Me, Abe, Selphie and Bryon; we've dedicated our lives to being just like you sir.'

Balthier paused, just before bordering the sky cab. He was in pain, nauseous from blood loss, eager to get the bloody hell off this tower before it caved in, and thoroughly fed up with the complications that made his life so interminably, lethally interesting. All the same the boy's words pelted the tattered shield of Balthier's mental defences like ballista mortars. He closed his eyes and shook his head despairingly, fighting the urge to groan out loud.

'Yes, I should have seen that one coming.' He murmured in open defeat before facing the other members of this little circle of apparent acolytes. 'Well, what are you waiting for?' he demanded irritably. 'I thought this was a rescue, hmm?'

The Cohort grinned hugely, all of them, and as Balthier sunk painfully into the back of the sky cab, closing his eyes in a vain attempt to deny reality the prototype shuddered into life punching through yet another wall and into the open sky. (And wasn't it lucky Balthier had had the foresight to install a paling shield upon the prototype? What a mess they would all be in now had he not.) Balthier was safe, Nono and Smith (also packed into the overcrowded cab) were safe – the requisite damsel in distress was safe (though still distressed due to a broken collar bone) but despite all this Balthier couldn't help but wonder if it was all worth the bother. He had ascended the heights of fame and notoriety and now he would have to pay for it.

Gods help him he had become a sodding role model!