Apologies, gentle readers. My lovely beta had a severe sickness of the everything and had to take a rest. Here is the chapter, with my apologies for its tardiness.
Rather than try to explain everything that was going on to Maroda, Auron opted to tell the young man to lay low and not head back to Bevelle. Then he dragged the two Turks out by their ears.
"What's the cost of the damages?" he asked the innkeeper.
The innkeeper peered inside the room, shrugged, and said, "Four thousand gil ought to cover it."
"Send the bill to High Summoner Yuna," Auron told her. "That's pocket change for her. I, however, am broke."
"We need it paid within thirty days…"
"She'll deliver," Auron assured the innkeeper. There might not even be a Spira in thirty days. He glared at Reno. "Apologize to the nice young woman."
Reno tried to free himself, but Auron twisted his ear, eliciting a yelp, followed by a "Sorry!"
"You, too," Auron growled at Rude.
The bald man motioned for Auron to release him. He straightened up, adjusted his tie, fixed his skewed sunglasses, and gave a shallow bow at the waist to the innkeeper. "My apologies."
Auron didn't comment on the marked difference between the two Turks, or even the contrasts in Rude's own personality. Opposites apparently worked well together.
"Let's go," he ordered brusquely, striding out the door, Reno alternately yelling and hopping after him on one foot, his ear still in what felt like a steel vise. Cloud, who had been standing outside, exchanged a glance with Rude and followed.
Within ten minutes, they were back aboard the Celsius, flying toward Djose Temple. The entire party was gathered on the bridge. It was somewhat crowded, but they didn't want to be somewhere without a visual if something happened.
Cloud had privately dreaded introducing the Turks to the Spirans, but it went much better than he'd anticipated. Reno complimented Lulu on her belts and received a frosty "I'm married." He complimented Yuna on her hair and nearly got his jaw dislocated by Tidus, whom Auron had to grab by the hair to restrain. He complimented Paine on her boots and narrowly avoided getting one of them between his eyes. He complimented Rikku on her guns in an especially racy fashion and it took both Tifa and Yuffie to keep her from shooting him.
Rude stood in a corner and looked unperturbed.
"Well, I think we're acquainted now," Cloud observed dryly. "What's our ETA to this temple?"
"Six minutes," Brother replied. "You'd better go get Elder Tromell. Last time I checked, he was still meditating."
"I'll get him up," Lulu volunteered as she noticed Reno starting to slide back towards her through the crowd. "Be right back."
"By the way, Lulu," Shinra spoke up. "You had a CommSphere transmission from Wakka. I let him know you were staying with us for a while. I haven't viewed it yet; would you like to see it?"
"Later," Lulu replied. "Thank you, though."
Cloud exchanged a glance with Tifa. Neither of them had gotten used to the young Al Bhed prodigy – his personality or his name. To say that he was unnerving was an understatement of huge proportions. It seemed to be the same way with everyone else that wasn't from Spira.
You want to head up to the deck?
She gave a fractional nod to his unspoken question, and they both faded off the bridge into the lift.
"Hopefully Reno will still be alive by the time we get there," Tifa said jokingly.
Cloud laughed; he did that too little these days. "Hopefully."
Embarrassingly enough, he felt his heart skip a beat when she favored him with a warm smile. "You should laugh more often, Cloud."
"I know."
The lift came to a smooth stop and they stepped out onto the deck of the Celsius. In its harness, the First Tsurugi swayed slightly and Cloud reached up a hand to steady it at its pommel. His mind caught up with what was happening when he realized Tifa had slipped her arm beneath the harness to take him into a half-embrace.
"Tifa?"
They kept walking, coming to the edge of the deck. She looked at him with misty eyes. "Sorry. It's just… it seems like it's been forever since we've had a moment together like this."
Cloud closed his eyes and called up his memory. She was right – it had been a long time. Nearly two years, in fact; the last time was when they'd spent the night together sleeping underneath the Highwind. Between that moment and this one, they'd either been busy or he'd been under the crippling blanket of guilt, which was not conducive to a relationship.
"I take it that whatever Auron did to whip you into shape has worked."
"I suppose so," he said, a half-smile coming to his face. "He opened my eyes. He showed me how foolish I was to think I was the only person with this kind of pain… and how selfish I was being in thinking that. More importantly than that, I think, he showed me that I have more than just my own strength to depend upon – I have good friends, all very special people, who I can count on in any situation." Cloud turned his head to regard Tifa, whose gaze had turned to the landscape shooting along below them. "That got me thinking about more than just my situation. I thought about the two of us, and how I've been so selfish as to completely ignore your feelings."
Tifa looked up at him, her eyes growing mistier. "You're serious?"
"I never lie, and I never tell jokes," Cloud replied with a hint of a smile in his eyes. "I… never really realized how hard it had to have been for you." Swallowing, he plowed onward. "I don't pretend to know exactly how you feel about me, Tifa. But what I do know is that you've been patient with me for upwards of two years, now, and that speaks volumes. Which got me to thinking… if it's not too late…?"
For a moment the question hung in the air between them, and Cloud felt himself stop breathing.
Then Tifa gave a soft laugh and swiped at her eyes. "You really are a massive bonehead, Cloud. You have to ask that after all these years that we've known one another? I haven't waited for you to come to this sort of conclusion for no reason, you know."
Cloud felt buoying relief surge through him, though it took him a moment to identify the feeling as elation. He'd felt so little of it, it was still an alien experience to him.
Moving as gently as years of battle-honed reflexes and muscles would permit him, Cloud wiped a stray tear from Tifa's cheek and drew her to him. She leaned forward, a sort of excited consent flashing through her eyes.
The side of the Celsius chose that moment to explode outwards. It was a huge detonation, blasting off a huge chunk of the hull and expelling several people with it. Both Cloud and Tifa offered up the same oath simultaneously, pulled apart, and ran to the edge of the deck.
Lulu and Tromell, apparently blown out of the Celsius' crew quarters by the explosion, were plummeting down toward the Moonflow below. Without thinking twice, Cloud sprang forward, ran down the side of the airship, and pushed off as he felt himself invert. Tifa was only a moment behind him. Together they rocketed down after the falling pair. They could worry about a proper entry later; right now they had to get Lulu and Tromell into positions that wouldn't snap their necks when they hit water.
Cloud drew even with Tromell. The Guado elder was unconscious, though he looked relatively unhurt save for a shallow gash on the side of his head. That told Cloud the explosion had simply ruptured the hull; the air rushing out of the room was what had pulled Tromell and Lulu out, and the old man had hit his head on the way. He grabbed Tromell by the shoulder and straightened him out as they fell, then rolled over onto his back in midair and pulled Tromell on top of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tifa repeating the maneuver with Lulu, who was also unconscious.
Then he hit the Moonflow. It felt like a jackhammer being driven into his back, but the First Tsurugi and its harness helped absorb some of the blow. He was more worried that Tifa, who had no such protection, might be worse off, but as he pulled himself back to the surface with Tromell he saw her doing the same.
"Anything broken?" he gasped, spitting out water.
Tifa shook her head at him. "Nothing. What was that?"
"No idea," Cloud said grimly. "For now, let's get to shore."
Auron was amusedly watching Reno try to strike up a casual conversation with Yuna while Tidus glowered when the airship shook violently.
"What was that?" he demanded.
"Hull breach!" Buddy sounded from his station. "In… oh, hell. The crew quarters!"
"We may have men overboard," Brother yelled. "I am bringing Celsius to emergency stop. All brace yourselves!"
Auron ground his boots into the metal flooring as best he could, and not a moment too soon – everyone else was pitched violently forward as the Celsius came to a shuddering halt in midair. Brother kicked her into a flat spin to keep her from stalling and to pull her around, then started her in a slow hover over the Moonflow.
"Everyone okay?" he asked.
"Cloud and Tifa got onto the lift," Auron replied. "They probably went up to the deck. Not to mention that Lulu and Tromell were in the crew quarters."
"Not looking too good, is it?" Tidus asked grimly.
Yuna was already heading for the lift. "It could be worse. Let's survey the damage."
Cloud dragged himself and Tromell ashore just as Tifa pulled herself and Lulu out of the water. He checked Tromell's pulse and found it strong and steady.
"Tromell should be all right," he said to Tifa. "What about Lulu?"
Tifa checked the black mage's pulse. "Strong, but it's like she just finished a ten-mile run. If the detonation of a shaped charge knocked her out, she wouldn't have time to be so surprised."
Even as he opened his mouth to ask what, then, could be agitating Lulu so much, the woman's eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright, clutching at her stomach. She blasted Tifa backwards instinctively to give herself space and then started to vomit.
Cloud swore again and thought Lulu had lost it when it became abundantly clear that the black mage was vomiting up JENOVA cells. He had the First Tsurugi out a moment later and crossed the distance between himself and Lulu in half that time.
Shuddering, she wretched one more time and then collapsed shakily into a sitting position, keeping herself upright on her arms, palms thrust flat against the ground. "It surprised us. It must have come aboard when we landed outside Guadosalam. It had blended into the bulkhead, and when it sprang I tried to hit it with a Firaga and hit the bulkhead instead. There must have been a tertiary fuel line there or something, because the result of my screwup was a big explosion and a mouthful of JENOVA cells."
A shiver ran up Cloud's spine. "Sorry."
"That's twice now I've been targeted," Lulu growled, wiping at her mouth. "First at Kilika, now here."
"Not a skill that usually comes in handy," Tifa quipped weakly. "You're sure that's all of them? They look dead."
"They damn well should be. And yes, I'm sure that's all of them. They didn't have a chance to spread throughout my body." Cloud offered her a hand up, which she declined, getting to her feet. "Is Tromell all right?" she asked.
"He'll be fine, luckily." A moment's inspection of the sky revealed the Celsius drifting back towards them. "I hope Brother doesn't give you too hard a time about the explosion."
"He can try, if he likes," Lulu chuckled darkly. "I can repeat the process with his head if he does."
Reno got up from the kneeling position he'd assumed to better inspect the large hole in the bulkhead. "Nope, not a shaped charge. Looks to me like something, maybe a spell, set off this fuel line, here. Fortunately, it looks like the line has emergency seals every so often, else the entire ship could've been toasted."
"Lulu, then," Yuna murmured. "She would never do this purposefully. Something must have attacked her."
"Ten gil says Sephiroth's behind this," Reno ventured. "He's apparently got free-floating JENOVA cells to spare – he did resurrect Emerald and Ruby, after all."
The Spirans were, unsurprisingly, confused by this statement, but Vincent, Red XIII, and Yuffie all stared at Reno with unconcealed shock. "Excuse me, what?" Yuffie asked. "Why didn't you mention this earlier?"
"You didn't ask, sugar. Besides, it's been busy."
"That's a lame excuse. And don't call me sugar."
"Sure thing, honey."
Vincent laid a restraining arm on Yuffie's shoulder as she instinctively went for her boomerang-shuriken. "Marital squabbles can come later," he deadpanned. "We check the shoreline for Cloud, Tifa, Lulu, and Tromell now."
Brother harrumphed and said, "Ahem. I am captain of this ship, and I give the orders around here. Now, do what he said. Buddy, patch the hole."
"Sure thing," Tidus drawled. "I suppose we should just jump down."
"Reno, here's your chance to cast yourself from the 'highest parapet' you mentioned," Auron added.
"Shut up."
"We ready?" Cid asked.
Barrett, who, much to his annoyance, still had Cait Sith on his shoulder, nodded. Cait Sith also nodded, and Reeve said, "Let's go."
Cid hit a button, and the Shera plummeted down into the ocean below. She now sported the Heavy Gauss Cannon that Rufus had ordered constructed. The thing fired quarter-ton projectiles at half a kilometer a second. Cid had dubbed it the Not-So-Tiny-Bronco.
If they encountered Emerald or Ruby, they would pull up out of the ocean and commence aerial bombardment. Water presented no threat to the Bronco when it was inactive, but firing in water was impossible.
"Alright," he crowed. "We should see the cave in three… two… one…"
He was watching the rangefinder, so Barret's loud oath was his first indication that there was something wrong.
"Holy shit," Cid murmured.
The cave entrance, as well as the cave complex, was gone. Emerald and Ruby had cored through all the way to the portal, which now lay open to the ocean at large. They had also smashed through the stone separating the larger part of the portal from the water, leaving a giant, semicircular field of magical distortion shimmering there.
Their massive footprints led up to the portal and disappeared.
"So much for our high-tech advantage," Cid growled. "If Auron wasn't full of shit, all his world's got is basic robots and magic."
"I got an idea," Barrett said.
"Should I be scared?"
"Haw, very funny. Put the pedal to the metal."
"'Scuse me? Are you tellin' me to take the Shera into that thing? Who the hell knows where it leads!"
"Listen, if Em'rald and Ruby went through it, it leads to somewhere big enough to hold 'em. Even if it's a bad place to bring the Shera into, we can just poke our nose out and then run if we gotta."
Cid took a drag on his cigarette and scowled. "I still don't like it."
"We can do that, or we can sit here on our asses and play the waitin' game, or we can get into the suits."
"I may not be able to maintain Cait Sith's signal if you head into that portal," Reeve said. "Just be advised."
"You mean it might actually shut up if we head in? I'm for it," Cid barked, a smile creasing his face.
"Very funny. Go ahead, then; I'll keep things battened down here. Sephiroth may still cause some sort of trouble, Junon is in revolt, and Marlene wants a bedtime story."
Knowing that he probably didn't want to know the answers to his questions, Cid slammed the throttle to full. The Shera shot forward toward the portal.
At a routine meeting of the Senate, a minor dignitary noticed a strange smile blossom simultaneously on the faces of Praetor Baralai, Meyvn Nooj, and Mechanist Gippal. The expression was just as quickly gone, but the impression it left was startling and unnerving.
Deep beneath them, two huge forms coalesced in the subterranean chamber where Vegnagun had resided. The underground complex had already been prepared for their arrival; all the small corridors had been gutted, with nothing but cavernous empty space remaining.
Sephiroth was quite satisfied with his progress.
