Saria: Alright, at this rate we'll be in California by Monday!
Tori: You're hoping to have this posted before then, right?
Saria: Yep!
SA: She'll need to; updates will only be once a week from now on. At best.
Zas: Well, new job, new people, new cons, this is going to be fun!
zzzzzzzzzz
There are six chocobos total that run each race. With both Cloud and me riding for the freedom of our friends, our odds of victory were significantly better.
As I sat on Jerk's back at the starting line waiting for the starting shot, I really couldn't help but wonder just what kind of set up I'd been placed in. Jerk wasn't a trained racer, for all I knew she could panic at the sound of the shot and run wild!
Before I could dwell too far into the notion though, the shot signaling the start of the race rang out. I was pleasantly surprised that Jerk Chicken didn't squawk and run around randomly but actually took off down the track, keeping a very good pace despite the fact two chocobos surged ahead almost instantly in sprints.
"Just keep it even girl, I'll tell you when we're close," I murmured as we began the trek up the spiral ramp. The two chocobos that started sprinting early fell back rapidly as we reached the top, but Cloud and the two other chocobos were still in the race.
The status quo was constant until we reached the part of the course that was the downward slope to the wooden bridge right before the space-like area. One of the other riders urged his chocobo into a sprint. Jerk Chicken almost followed, but I held her back just short of sprinting. And just as I suspected the bird tired halfway through the room, right as I nodded to Cloud and we both let our birds go into a sprint.
The last chocobo other than us was also sprinting but surprisingly enough the professional bird was not keeping pace and fell back also.
Cloud and I crossed the finish line in that order and rather than stopping, Jerk Chicken kept running, as did Cloud's bird. It took me a moment to realize that both birds were still competing despite the race being over and I laughed as I glanced over at Cloud who still looked quite confused. The birds ran the track a halfway through a second time before finally stopping, mainly because Cloud's finally collapsed and Jerk Chicken did as well several paces beyond it.
"That is a determined chocobo," Ester stated when we finally made it back to the lounge followed by jockeys that were laughing too hard to be mad that they lost a race. "And congratulations, you and your friends are home-free!"
"You can say that again," I replied as Jerk was wheeled in by several of the men who worked the track. She had done an excellent job and I wasn't sour about second place in the least since Cloud had won. "Do you think you could allow her to stay here? I don't have a place for her at the moment, but I will organize something when I can."
Ester laughed at my request, I think in some way she was pleased that I had asked. "Teioh was looking for a friend for his chocobo since he is always staying here. We can put them in together tonight and see how they do. Also, Dio asked me to give you this." She handed Cloud a letter which he read aloud.
Boy, if you're reading this letter, then you must have won, and won a victory I'm sure you earned. I heard about Dyne from Ester. Now that you are victorious, you and your friends will receive a full pardon, and you will all be set free. By way of apology to your friends, and as payment for the aid afforded to us by your other friend, I have arranged a gift that should assist you in your travels as well as replacement supplies for what was used to help us. You will also find that arrangements have been made for you all to stay in the Ghost Hotel for tonight. Sorry I couldn't tell you this in person, I am a very busy man.
Sincerely, Dio
Cloud's PHS went off at that moment and he pulled it out quickly. "Hello?"
"Cloud? It's Tifa!" Tifa must have been shouting because I heard her clearly.
"Tifa! Are you guys alright? We won the race so you guys should have been released!"
"We're already back in the park! They escorted us to the Ghost Hotel and said we would be staying here tonight."
"Yeah, we just received a note from Dio saying that he's arranged for us to stay there tonight. We'll be heading over now. See you soon." Cloud hung up then.
After bidding farewell to Ester and promising that we would be back, the two of us made our way to the transport tubes in front of the Chocobo tracks and walked into the one labeled for the hotel. The trip there was fast and after mere moments we were launched into the yard of the spook hotel.
Exhaustion from the day was finally catching up to me, of that I was certain as we trekked to the hotel. My vision was swimming a bit, my eyelids felt like they were filled with sand, and when we entered the hotel all I could offer anyone was a bit of a weak smile before turning to the stairs, fully intending to find my room and sleep out the night. I was stopped by Kunsel who pressed a granola bar into my hand, already opened, and ordered me to eat. Thankfully no one else seemed to notice as Cloud was regaling them about the race and how Ester had given him a really good bird.
I finished the bar fast and turned back to the stairs, jumping a bit when the hanging butler dropped down and told me that he would guide me to our rooms.
Once inside, I didn't bother with changing into pajamas or removing equipment. I just toed off my shoes and crawled into the nearest bed available and was out like a light inside of a minute later.
My sleep was far from peaceful that night as nightmares echoed through my head. Of Hojo and the Shinra labs, of the events of today, of screaming voices. At one point I sat up, certain that I'd be back in either the crash-pad or hotel room I should be staying in on Earth and instead saw Tifa and Yuffie come through the door of the room.
"Sorry we woke you," Tifa whispered as she walked to one of the other beds in the room and Yuffie jumped into a roll away bed. Apparently this was the girl's room and I had missed Aeris coming in altogether.
Lying back down, I was asleep again surprisingly fast, but nightmares came again. I dreamt of standing and being mowed down by Dyne's gun, of the bloody, twisted bodies of the slain… and the last time I saw my grandpa.
I woke up again at some point in the early morning and couldn't bring myself to even try to fall asleep again. Pulling myself from the soft bed and grabbing my pack, I changed into regular clothes and set out to return the scrubs. Another door opened as I passed it and I was faintly surprised to see Cait Sith looking out at me.
"Where you be off to lassie?" Cait asked when I paused to look at him.
"Just returning these," I indicated the scrubs I held as I began to walk again.
"At 5:49 in the morning?" This voice belonged to Zack who appeared in the doorway behind Cait Sith. Zack sighed when he saw my face; I guess I was showing a bit of stress. "Couldn't sleep?"
"No." I continued to walk towards the stairs and heard the soft thump of a door. Certain that they had turned back in, I was surprised when Zack appeared to one side of me moments later.
"Is what happened yesterday bothering you?"
I felt the sick feeling return as thoughts of yesterday and the nightmares returned. "I… The people… And…" I couldn't think at the moment, and thinking was one of the things I prided myself on. Yet the sight of those people yesterday, feeling their hurt, their desperation, and now…
"Seeing people get hurt or killed is a sad thing, and your first time is always the worst-"
"That wasn't the first time," I snapped at Zack as we descended the stairs, Cait Sith hopping along behind us.
Silence reigned for a moment between us.
"I'm sorry." Both Zack and I apologized at the same time. Glancing at one another, it seemed we both came to the conclusion of dropping the subject for the moment.
"So, after dropping off those scrubs, get back here so we can determine what we should do about breakfast." Zack had stopped by the doors to the outside, apparently intending to wait here.
"Ok, see you." I stepped out and was surprised when Cait Sith followed.
"Can't have a lady walkin about on her own!" The cat seemed to smile at me in a fashion that I thought of as heartwarming. It seemed so hard to believe that this little guy was actually a spy, though he would turn out to be a valuable member in the future.
"Cute," I stated with a smile as we approached the transport tubes.
With Zack and AVALANCHE
Footfalls on the stairs drew Zack's attention right after Rachas had left and he turned to see Barret and Kunsel walking down the stairs.
"How long have you guys been there?"
"Long enough to hear her snap at you," Kunsel replied, his glowing eyes turning from Zack to the closed door. "She's seen something terrible before, and yesterday seems to have opened a wound or two."
"I realized that, but I'm not sure what."
"Ain't nobody's business if she won't say, but back in Sect'r Seven she said Shinra blew up Banora."
Zack froze at Barret's comment as memories of wanting to talk to Rachas came rushing back, the urge somehow being labeled as unimportant. Since when had he decided something like that? Then Barret's words fully hit him. "Wait, she already knew?"
Kunsel spoke up again. "That could explain some things."
Shinra
Reeve was finishing the last details on a more permanent plan on how to house and feed the survivors of Sector 7 when he received the tone on his computer indicating that Cait Sith had either had new information or located another of the targets in AVALANCE. Since he had encountered all members except the blond Ancient yesterday that must mean that he had finally met her.
The young executive quickly brought up the video and audio feed being sent by his creation, intent to give Rufus a more thorough report on these terrorists.
The image was a bit grainy because they were in motion, but Cait was definitely following a darkly clad young woman.
"Hey Cait, how did you get recruited?" a woman's voice asked.
"Gave a fortune to young Cloud, a weird one like I've never had before. I intend to see what it means."
The Ancient smiled at Cait. "A fortune teller? That's a bit different."
"You mind telling me your name again lassie?"
"Rachas Kaze," the girl wasn't smiling now as she led Cait through a set of doors into what appeared to be a medical center. A moment later as the woman was talking to a nurse the transmission cut off.
Confused on why this AVALANCHE member would be talking to a nurse, Reeve pulled up the report Cait had sent. Ah, so this one had assisted the medics in treating the wounded yesterday, a bit strange for a terrorist.
Pressing a few buttons to update the report to include both the names Rachas Kaze and Yuffie Kisaragi, the newest member of AVALANCHE, Reeve turned his attention back to his more immediate challenge: a report to either convince Rufus to overturn his father's decision to not rebuild Sector 7 or to consider expanding the city.
Normal
When Cait and I returned to the hotel, I was pleased to see that just about everyone was up despite the fact it was barely past 6am. It was also great that the hotel offered breakfast starting at that hour.
Our group of ten grabbed three tables in the dining room and served ourselves various breakfast foods. There was French toast, waffles, fruit, sausage and bacon, biscuits, juices, milk, cereal, and just about every breakfast food that we had been missing for the last couple weeks.
After breakfast a set of guards escorted us to an elevator and took us down to ground level where Dio's gift was waiting for us: the big red buggy.
The buggy was HUGE, as in small bus huge; we would all fit in there easily! It was also an automatic, so I would be able to drive!
Everyone except Yuffie grinned at the notion of not having to walk anymore and we moved to the back to store our packs only to discover that the cargo area was already half filled with bandages, food, water, and at the top of the stack were several Life-time passes to Gold Saucer, one for each of the nine of us that originally came. Looks like when we came back we'd have to pay for Cait, Vincent, and Cid.
Everyone piled into the buggy, my offer to drive first being shot down by Zack jumping behind the wheel immediately. The rest of us seated ourselves in the buggy with the exception of Yuffie who insisted on taking the guard position on the roof. No one argued since most of us remembered the ride just to get to Gold Saucer had her gagging and vomiting.
"So, anyone know which way we're heading?"
"Gongaga," Cloud called out as he pulled out Dio's letter.
Zack, who was currently behind the wheel, turned immediately to stare at Cloud. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, Dio wrote that he saw a figure like how we described Sephiroth heading in to the South-east towards Gongaga."
The buggy leapt forward at a speed I never thought such a bulky vehicle could ever reach, bumping over the rough terrain, throwing everyone except Zack into the roof and walls of the vehicle. Through an open window Yuffie could be heard as she yelled, gagged, and made other absolutely wondrous sounds.
"Zack! Slow down! You're going to make me sick!" Kunsel yelled as Aeris bounced into him.
"Man, what's wrong?" Barret shouted as Cait's Mog bumped into his side, I had already grabbed the cat robot and held him even as I bounced off my seat and onto the floor.
"WHOO-HOO! FASTER!" I shouted, thoroughly excited as my adrenaline junkie tendencies were finally able to rear their head after weeks of being cut-off.
"Don't encourage him!" Tifa yelled. "Jessie told me you have an education in Engineering, just think of what this is doing to our new buggy!"
"Fine!" I responded, pushing Cait into the seat beside me. "Zack, you're going to break this hunk of metal and never get to Gonga-UF!" I was cut off when a howling Red got tossed on me by a particularly bad bump.
Cloud and Kunsel both tried to crawl to the front of the vehicle then, using seats and windows to aid their progress. When they got there, both grabbed at the wheel but Zack didn't back down quietly.
"My parents are in Gongaga!" he shouted as he tried to wrest Cloud's and Kunsel's hands off of him. "We have to get there!"
"We will but not if you break this thing!" Cloud shouted as he finally pulled Zack's hands from the wheel. Kunsel got a handle on the former First's legs then and they lifted him away from the controls, allowing the buggy to come to a rolling stop.
"We gotta keep moving!" Zack insisted, his eyes wild.
"We will!" Aeris told him firmly as she tried to help him calm down while Kunsel set himself behind the vehicle controls. "You have to calm down."
"Sephiroth's on foot," Red reasoned as he limped to an open seat, having gotten off of me as soon as the vehicle had stopped. "We will easily catch or overtake him so long as we don't panic and break the buggy."
"You don't understand, Sephiroth doesn't need any transportation, I've seen him move!"
"He hasn't killed civilians," Cloud stated only for Zack to ignore him.
"YET!" Zack yelled, looking ready to jump out of the window and run to Gongaga.
"You're not safe to drive…" I stated loudly as I climbed into my seat, earning a look from Zack.
"Why do you say that?"
"Pilots have a basic system to know if they're safe to go or not, the acronym is IMSAFE." I explained as Kunsel started the engine and began to drive the buggy. I pulled Cait into my lap and started to scratch his ears before continuing. "That stands for Illness, medication, stress, alcohol, fatigue, and emotion. You're very emotional right now; you wouldn't be able to focus on driving."
Zack glared at me for my comment, which was the first time I had ever seen him do something like that. "At least I'm emotional about my family being in danger. You didn't even bother to let me know when I tried to talk to you about Banora that you already knew Shinra had destroyed it."
Various people around the buggy drew in breaths; I even heard Yuffie gasp as her head appeared in a window on the other side of the buggy.
"Come again?" Cait Sith jumped up looking honestly surprised.
"Rachas, did your home really get destroyed by Shinra?" Tifa asked, staring at me intently.
I drew in a breath, prepared to tell a mix of lie and truth. "Banora was destroyed by Shinra over five years ago. I wasn't there when it happened so I survived." Alright, truth managed thus far, I hadn't been in Banora. My promise to the Goddess was still intact.
"What about your family?" Aeris was staring at me also, her eyes filled with compassion.
"I don't want to talk about them."
Zack narrowed his eyes at my comment while everyone else moved back slightly, indicating that they were willing to drop the subject. "How did you know?" he demanded.
"The planet probably told her," Aeris told him gently.
Zack glanced at her then me and seemed to think back. "When I tried to talk to you before, you said you were confirming something. Was that it?"
"Yeah," I replied as I hugged Cait Sith before gently setting him back onto the seat.
Zack seemed to calm down a bit then as he sat back with Aeris. "What happened to your family?" He demanded after a moment.
"Zack! That's insensitive!"
"She can talk about her friends and grandpa, why not the rest?"
"I said I didn't want to talk about them." I was starting to raise my voice, angry that Zack was pressing this issue.
"Well why not? Too painful that they're all dead? Barret's family is all dead and he was able to come clean!"
"This isn't the same!"
"I'm with Rachas on this, yur pushin too much!" Barret came to my aid.
"My parents might be in danger and I react normally! Hers aren't around and she's indifferent! Even her friends and grandpa! Almost like she's glad-"
I lashed out then, striking Zack as hard as I could across the cheek. "Think what you want about me, but never and I mean NEVER, assume I'm glad that my grandpa is dead!"
The conversation didn't start again. Everyone seemed thoughtful for a while before Zack made another announcement.
"I don't want to stop until I know they're safe."
"Then we can drive in shifts," Tifa stated as she settled back in her seat.
"When will we get there?"
"Tomorrow." This time Cloud was the one to respond as he glanced at a map.
The rest of the day was a long and quiet one where we switched drivers every so often and almost everyone napped for a certain amount of time. I crawled into a seat by myself and had pulled out Jedi Healer. I tried to read for a while then shoved it back into my pack before dozing, and then the nightmares were back, plaguing my mind.
Jerking awake, I began to meditate, determined to clear my mind of those images. I pushed deeper and deeper, finally entering the meeting grounds for the Cetra and relaxing as the green embrace of the Lifestream flowed over me. It was terribly confusing, I had no regrets over helping those people yesterday, but I couldn't stop thinking about how the entire situation had felt like.
"You're troubled." For once I almost welcomed the voice that floated to me over the currents of the Lifestream. "What makes you so upset about what happened?"
I thought for a moment, trying to find the right answer. The conclusion startled me. "Because I felt possessed."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that I didn't feel myself at all and with all of those people screaming and… and… broadcasting their fear and pain…" I felt my eyes widen as I realized another reason why I had snapped while under fire. "I wanted them all to stop… so they'd stop crushing me."
"Your own survival by insuring their survival." The Goddess's voice held understanding.
I dropped my head, ashamed to realize this was a fact. I had been prepared to allow those people to die, to just ignore the situation until my Jedi senses had made me experience what those people would go through. The pain, fear, and desperation that were much like what I felt when my grandpa had died. I had stepped in to stop my having to experience that.
"My nightmares, I feel guilty right now. I stopped Dyne not wholly for their sake."
"But you did. You could have blocked their cries out with some effort and instead you did something."
For some reason I didn't believe her when she said I could have blocked out those people.
Around me once again the Lifestream seemed to form an embrace which I tried to shrug off. Light laughter followed my actions as I shifted and shrugged, almost as though I were trying to toss off a pair of arms.
"Would you at least refer to me as Minerva rather than Gaia or Goddess?" Her voice asked even as the embrace dissipated and I felt myself drift back to my body.
Opening my eyes again to the sight of the buggy, I saw that most of the day had passed. At some point Yuffie had crawled in from the roof and was currently keeping her head out of a convenient window. In the west the sun was beginning to set and we were quickly approaching a river.
"You calmed down?" Barret asked as he handed me a bottle of water and a bag of some sort of food, I didn't care to check what it was right then.
"Fine." I kept my face neutral and voice impassive. Though I was still a bit angry, Zack was upset when we argued.
"Shouldn't fight, there ain't no room for that here." Barret moved away to sit on another seat then.
Cloud was driving at that moment and I traded between watching the stars come out and the river as we first approached then crossed it. Several hours later I volunteered to drive only to be told to relax as Barret took the wheel. By then full darkness had fallen and the stars blazed brightly in the sky.
"Rachas." Glancing over I saw Aeris had moved to sit next to me. "Don't hold a grudge against Zack for what he said today. He's just very stressed right now."
"I think we both are. He should calm down after seeing his parents." Aeris nodded and squeezed my hand before leaning back and closing her eyes.
The nightmares came again that night, but they seemed more muted than earlier that day and though I woke several times I was able to fall asleep again.
The next morning dawned grey and promised to quickly become a very hot one. The buggy was no longer bouncing over rocky ground; instead it seemed to skim over the sand of the desert that surrounded Gongaga. At about 9am the jungle oasis of Gongaga finally came into view.