Chapter 11

I woke up in a car.

Much to Sephiroth's surprise, James instantly knew what the situation was (which Sephiroth was fairly sure was a sign of the apocalypse). "Hey Niro, you finally got out of the lab!" Niro instantly embraced James in a tight hug. "Good to see you Mr. Firecat! I'm surprised that you'd settle down enough to hang out with these guys!"

James broke out of the hug and nodded quickly. "Yep! I mean Mirri gives a really good scratch behind the ears! You should ask her for one sometime, I mean she knows just the right spot and... oh, my eyes water thinking about it!" Niro slapped him on the back happily. "Glad to see you, because trust me on this, it would have been hard as hell to kill you!"

James leaned on his scythe and smiled. "Niro you always say the nicest things!" Sephiroth broke them apart quickly. "You two know each other?" James nodded vigorously while Niro nodded just once. "Yep! Whenever that creepy Dr. Hojo came to see how my progress was coming along he would bring Niro with him. Of course his shape shifting hadn't quite been perfected so I remember one time that he spent the entire visit in panther form, so it was a good thing I spoke cat!"

Sephiroth glared at the two of them, Niro was cryptic, James couldn't hold a secret to save his soul. Of course they said things about opposites attracted, but Sephiroth felt "Any port in a storm" would be a better definition of their friendship. Aeris was smiling as well, Sephiroth noticed, smiling like when she had found him back with that clone.

Sephiroth had a lifetime of military experience, and he knew when someone was about to commit a reserve to battle. Aeris was holding something back and she couldn't wait to hit him with it. He braced himself. "By the way, James won enough GP that he was able to buy a car. It's parked outside Corel."

Oh so that was it, it was funny the way James seemed to be making himself as small as possible and his voice was getting slightly distraught at this announcement. "Not on purpose mind you, it was Aeris' idea. I was just the guy who did the grunt work." Sephiroth let out a low sigh under his breath, Aeris was clearly spending too much time around Mirri.

It was if they had been in some kind of competition from the day they met to see who could surprise the other more and she had suddenly just scored her first point in a long time. At least Sephiroth had come to get a grip on the fine art of managing Mirri, even if it was like the fine art of anticipating where lightning would strike.

He pushed thoughts along those lines out of his mind, the mission was all that mattered. "Fine then, we should be able to drive rather then walk for a while. We're heading south now, we'll stop at Gongaga and rest there for a while. With a car we should be able to make the journey in about a day and a half if we leave now." Since there was no argument against that plan, they did.

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James looked up at the moon as it hung in the sky. Regardless of what Alex had said, the new moon didn't seem to be calling to him in any way, or if it was he couldn't hear it. Considering how good James' ears were, the odds were that even hanging up in the sky if the moon was calling his name he probably could have heard it.

What he could hear was the sound of the river they had crossed right before the group had made "camp" calling to him. It was a challenge, and one James was ready to accept. He took one look down, and braced himself, the river was almost a lake. It looked like it was over 10 feet deep and if it hadn't been for a section of it that Sephiroth and Alex had frozen before they drove over it (and fast at that) it would have been close to impassible.

He looked down, and attempted to polarize his eyes so that he could see perfectly through the water that normally distorted vision. The effect he got was close enough. He took one more look down, carefully removed his hat and sneakers, then dove in.

He had carefully arched his back straight as an arrow so that the water wouldn't push against him as hard. He kicked his way to the bottom holding his breath, and saw his target. He kicked himself a little lower, and then his hand darted out aiming for the middle.

The target became aware of him and started to move but James still firmly got a hand around the tail. He pulled the thing closer, got both of his hands around the target and kicked to the surface. He tossed the fish on the ground to wriggles its last wheezing breaths as he took to the matter of shaking himself dry.

In retrospect he admitted that he probably should have removed his socks as well as his shoes. "James how do you do it?" He looked up and smiled while he slammed a gloved hand down on top of the dieing fish to make sure it didn't get away from him. "It's easy! You just have to aim for the middle of the fish. That way when it starts to move you grab it by the tail in the end."

Aeris apparently was interested in something other then James' nocturnal fishing habits. "No I mean, how do you live your life the way you do?" James slowly withdrew the hand and grabbed the fish by its tail lifting it up again to check how much life was left in the thing. "I'm me, I'm not anyone else." The fish was partially verging on sort of dead.

"James, how can you take in everything out there in the world and not be surprised by it? How can you take it all in, and fit right into place?" James shook the fish this way and that, it was good and dead by now he was fairly sure. "Well I let it, the world fits into place on its own." He careful pulled out a small knife Mirri had given him just for this purpose from a pants pocket.

He continued his explanation as he began filleting the fish. "I mean, look at this river, do you know where it goes?" Aeris shook her head and James smiled as he careful made his first cut. "Neither do I. Not a clue. I figure it'll end up eventually going into some ocean one way or another because that's what happens to all water sooner or later. Life isn't any different for me, it's ups, its downs, it'll all work out one way or another.

You see the problem most people make trying to catch a fish is that they try to approach it from behind, thinking the fish won't know they're there, but it knows. Fish have eyes in the side of their heads, you need to approach 'em from the front. If you can get directly between there eyes they can't see you. That and when they dart they're darting towards you against the water and your moving with it.

That's the secret to it all, you have to go with the water, roll with the punches. You get knocked down, you get back up again. If you're going to stand on the ice you might as well dance. Make people laugh, you can't look dignified while you're having fun. Don't sweat the small stuff. It's all small stuff.

Grab life by the lips and YANK as hard as you can! But the important thing to do is remember to have fun!"

As James spoke he was busy slicing away at the fish with reckless abandon. "Because when you get down to it, life is basically us getting swept down a river with no end in sight. No matter how we fight it, we aren't going to make much progress fighting the current. We can move left and right some, but if you really wanna move around you have to take a deep breath and dive right in."

James finished slicing the fish apart, most of its meat and it's bones where already on the ground before him but he calmly dropped what was left down his gullet and swallowed it in one gulp. Then he licked his lips. "Sometimes in life Aeris, you have to do stuff just for the hell of it. You know what I mean?"

Aeris nodded slowly. "I think I may have some idea of what you mean. I mean, when Sephiroth dropped into my life, literally, I instantly knew there was something about him." James nodded eagerly. "Oh yeah, Seph is special all right. There's something about him that draws people in him. I guess charisma would be the best word for it. He's got great charisma, even Mirri admits that. It goes beyond tactics and strategy, and all that, its like the world revolves around him whether he wants it to or not. That if you stick near him, things are going to happen, and for me, life isn't worth living if it's not interesting."

Interesting was hardly the word Aeris would use to describe the last few days. Getting chased around by guards, Turks, watching what James had done to that thing... and how he had done it. James had been so cheerfully chanting those slogans while he had butchered that fish. There was no difference between that and the way he had killed that fish and how he had killed that thing. How would James kill a human?

"James, do you ever think about the value of life?" "Not really. Mirri told me once that thinking about the people your fighting in battle is a surefire way to get killed, and it makes sense. Those people sure aren't thinking about me, or at least, not in any positive way, if they were they wouldn't be trying to kill me.

I can't say I know much about the value of life, but I'm attached to my own. No reason to let someone else end it by killing me. No reason to end it by not being willing to kill a fish to eat it. I guess, I'm just plain lucky when it comes to life. Because for me it's simple, the life I kill to sustain or save my own, I don't regret."

Aeris summoned up all her courage, and she finally asked the question that had been on her mind the entire time. "James, what happened to you back on that ship?" James extended his hand, as if looking at his nails beneath his gloves and then nodded to himself.

"There comes a time when you are faced with two paths, and all the rest of the world is dead. When you will see death come to you. He will ask for payment, and you will have only two coins to pay him with. The coin in your right hand is the coin of self resistance. The coin whose cost is separation of your body from your soul. It is the coin that nearly all people pay with.

But what about that coin in your left hand, the coin turned down, what is it's cost? That coin's cost is inviting death into your body to dwell within you and become one with you.

The right hand is your life, the left hand is the life of those who would kill you. Some people never even realize that there is a coin digging into their left palm, no matter how much it calls out to them. But that left hand exists, it is just the path less trodden, the path you will never walk alone because you have death as your companion..."

James eyes where not a sparkling red, they where a raging inferno. As he finished he shook his head and his eyes returned to normal. Then he crossed them as he scratched his ear with his left hand. "Man, I really have to stop speed reading those philosophy and psychology books Mirri leaves lying around, I don't have a clue what I just said!" Aeris shuddered, she did, and somehow that James didn't only made things worse.

OWAN: Ok, James says that you could also just go to blogspot and search for "James Firecat." He wants me to put a URL in here, but we all know doesn't allow it. We have another reviewer, yay! Yeah, James was a little creepy here, this chapter is to remind you all that he's not just a kitten, he's got a Sephiroth-ish side, it's just very well hidden, even from him.