A/N:

RK: So in the words of Mara "Happy Explosive Paradise Day"!

Otherwise known as the Fourth of July!

If you're from the US, enjoy the wonderfulness that is fireworks! Sadly, I won't be able to see anything like that tonight because I'll be working through it. But I remember when I used to go watch all the fireworks as a child with my parents. Ahhh, fun times!

But I figured it would be a nice treat to submit a new chapter today, so here you go!

Enjoy!


The entire way back to Sheridan, Jade kept an eye on Valeria.

He knew that she had been working on her Mystic Arte, even getting some of the formulations down and had been ready to begin toying with gathering the correct amount of fonons for it. But from what she'd told him, she wasn't ready to attempt it in battle.

In fact, he recalled her telling him on the way to Grand Chokmah that she was planning on working on it more after dealing with St. Binah. But that was only going to be after she finished working on another arte she'd been toying with.

So to hear from Anise that Valeria had used her Mystic arte against a creature that had been giving their group a lot of trouble was a bit worrisome. Especially with how exhausted she looked. She'd missed out on at least four jokes she could've made against both him and Guy, the two of them being her favorite targets other than Luke. And yet she'd just laid there on Nyla, either asleep or pretending to be so, while everyone else was fighting and protecting her, Nyla and Ginji.

He noticed that neither Natalia nor Anise had anything to say about her not helping so they clearly thought she needed rest. In fact the only one to bring it up was Guy, who only asked what was wrong once before Natalia explained the situation.

Jade had almost expected Luke to be the one to bring it up, yet the red head had remained silent, only glancing at Valeria worriedly before going to attack a monster intent on their group.

Now, they were finally entering Sheridan, hours later. Ginji accepted the hover drive from Guy, who had placed it in a wing pack during the journey. "Thank you for everything! I'll go on ahead and deliver the hover drive."

With that, Ginji departed from them, leaving them standing at the entrance of the town.

Now that they were safely in the town, Jade looked over at Valeria, still asleep on Nyla. He almost left her like that, asleep. But instead, he nudged her, making her topple to the ground. Nyla rounded on him immediately, growling sharply, fangs barred.

Jade took a step back at the Arka's anger. "Stand down Nyla…"

Everyone took a step back at once at his tone, clearly unsure as to what's going on. Something he was confused about as well. Why did Nyla suddenly get so defensive of the girl? And why did Valeria suddenly fall like that?

The girl in question groaned from where she was on the ground. "Back…"

Nyla moved immediately at her words, circling around the girl so that she was behind Valeria, though she was still growling at Jade. Jade stared the Arka down, tense as the canine took a step forward until Valeria stood on shaky feet, pushing Nyla back a couple of steps. She seemed to share a look with her pet and Nyla relaxed for the moment, sitting down on her back feet.

Tired silver eyes regarded Jade before she ran a hand through her disheveled hair. "For future reference, since you haven't been around me like this before, fonon depletion from artes makes me loopy and Nyla gets uber protective during times that I get like this. She's actually attacked Dist a couple of times when this has happened before."

"So this isn't the first time you've attempted your Mystic Arte?"

"I never said that," Valeria told Jade. "I only said that there are some instances when I've had artes deplete my reserves for fourth fonons and that makes me loopy as opposed to just being really tired when there aren't any fourth fonons around."

"You seem pretty stable," Guy pointed out.

She shrugged. "It comes and goes. I just need more sleep and more water and I'll be fine."

Jade wanted to ask a couple more questions but Valeria took that moment to climb back on Nyla to fall back asleep. And the moment he opened his mouth to ask, they were interrupted.

"You must be the nuts who sailed over here on a Malkuth landship!"

Kimlascan soldiers ran at them, brandishing their weapons. Granted, both he and Nyla had Malkuth tabards on them and their group was an odd mix of people, but there was still no reason for the soldiers to suddenly get on the defensive like this.

"Hmm? Are the two of you Malkuth soldiers!?"

"Uh-oh."

Luke said what they were all currently thinking, and with Nyla being a little on edge because of Valeria, it would not be a good idea for any confrontations.

"Run!"

Jade made sure the others moved at Anise's order before allowing himself to do the same, Nyla with Valeria being the second to last to leave as the Arka seemed hesitant to go with them. But Jade knew Nyla was smart, and came to the conclusion that they were the lesser evil.

They all ran through Sheridan, ignoring the odd looks from the general population as they rushed by. Jade looked ahead and noticed that Guy was standing by the open door to a warehouse, ready to shut it the moment he was in.

The moment Guy closed the door, Jade found it interesting that Nyla went over to help him hold the door as the soldiers caught up and began banging on it.

"Ah, you're back!" Iemon walked towards them, rubbing his hands excitedly. "Aston's about to attach the hover drive right now!"

"Open this door immediately!"

Tamara came out from behind a terminal. "What's going on?"

Jade adjusted his glasses. "We were spotted by Kimlascan soldiers."

"Oh, that's right; you're a soldier from Malkuth."

If Valeria was awake, Jade was pretty sure she would've face palmed or brought up the fact that two of their group was wearing Malkuth tabards. He was actually surprised she didn't suddenly wake up to do just that, since she's been known to wake up to say one sentence then go right back to sleep.

Was her exhaustion really that bad? Jade has honestly never seen her like this, even when she'd been tired in the desert.

"This city originally produced landships for Malkuth," Iemon mused. "If we weren't on the brink of war, nobody would have cared…"

That seemed to make Tamara recall something. "Speaking of landships, we took a load of parts from yours. There were even some parts that aren't being manufactured anymore. It was a big help."

"Thanks to that," Ion interjected, "the Tartarus is no longer operational."

"But if the Albiore can actually fly, we won't need the Tartarus anymore."

"What do you mean, 'actually'?!" Aston demanded angrily to Anise's comment, rising up from the floor on an elevator. "The Albiore carries our hopes and dreams! It will never fall!"

"…It already did," Jade heard Luke mutter.

"Hey! Guys! Hurry it up! They're breaking down the door, Nyla and I can't hold it much longer!"

Tear stepped forward, serious after Guy's request. "What's the condition of the Albiore II?"

"It's finished," Aston assured, "and the pilot's ready too!"

"Okay, we'll handle those soldiers. Hurry!"

"But the soldiers are quite irate," Natalia argued when Iemon spoke up. "Perhaps I should tell them who I am…"

"There's no time! Leave it to us."

"Never underestimate the elderly!" Aston added, standing next to Tamara as she brandished her ruler. "Now, take off into the great sky of dreams!"

Jade didn't bother to respond to that, nudging Nyla towards the elevator, the Arka taking up most of the space. They'd need two trips to get down to the Albiore, especially since Nyla was being odd because of Valeria.

He, Tear and Nyla were the first ones down and they quickly got into the Albiore as the others came down on the second trip of the elevator. Jade told Nyla to curl up some place out of the way while he went up front to speak with the pilot.

And was a little surprised to see that it was a young woman standing next to the pilot's seat, he'd actually expected it to be Ginji. Granted this was a better choice since the young man was still injured, and he also knew that even though she was young, it didn't mean she didn't know what she was doing.

"I've been waiting for you; I'm the Albiore II's pilot, Noelle. Ginji, the Albiore I's pilot, is my older brother. I'll fly you all to St. Binah in his stead."

Jade nodded. "We appreciate it; all of us are good to go when you're ready."

Noelle nodded and quickly sat down in the passenger seat, getting the Albiore II ready for take-off. The moment she was ready, she told the others to hold on and they were soon in the air.

While they were in the air, Jade took the time to look around at the machinery available in the cockpit. He had a feeling that, if she were awake and aware, Valeria would be all over everything, wanting to know how it worked. Jade also wondered why Guy wasn't doing something similar since he also liked fon tech just like Valeria.

Speak of, once they were fully in the air, Jade moved back to the cargo hold where Nyla was currently wrapped completely around Valeria, the blonde lying on the floor curled into a ball. Nyla looked up as he came closer, growling low in her throat. Stopping a couple of feet away, Jade sat down on the floor, placing his water flask on the ground halfway between them.

"I know you want to protect her, but keeping her from others who can help heal her is not the best course of action." Jade informed Nyla.

The Arka lifted her head higher, staring him in the eyes before slowly unfurling her tails from around the blonde. Nyla then shifted so that she was behind the girl instead of blocking her in, allowing Jade to move a bit closer and set the water right by the blonde's head.

"I'll come back and check on her later, make sure she wakes up and drinks that."

Nyla didn't growl again but kept her gaze on him as he left the room.


Valeria jolted awake, nausea hitting her the moment she sat up. Curling in on her stomach, she leaned to the side and emptied what remained in her stomach.

A noise behind her had Valeria turning back to look and her eyes fell on Nyla. The canine was behind her, though she appeared to be fighting the urge to get in front of her.

Had the drain been that bad? That Nyla would feel the need to get this protective?

Valeria took that moment to look around and realized she was surrounded by people. A lot more people than she remembered being by when she went to sleep last.

How long was she out that they'd managed to get the people of St. Binah?

One of the women on the Albiore came over to her, an eye on Nyla. "Are you okay?"

Valeria blinked, suddenly not sure why her body reacted in such a way to make her vomit. Then she looked out the window closest to them and realized the air was filled with a purple haze. They were in the Qliphoth, it seemed. Maybe the reaction was to the miasma, they were outside Yulia City, so that meant there isn't much to protect them from the harmful substance.

Valeria nodded to the woman, placing her hand on the Arka to keep her calm. "I'm good, just surprised we're in the Qliphoth, that's all."

"Oh, is that what this place is?"

Valeria eyed the woman carefully. "You're calm about having your town getting destroyed."

"I had accepted the fact that we likely wouldn't be returning, and… I lost my husband in Akzeriuth; maybe this means I need a change."

Valeria tilted her head for a moment before she nodded and thanked the woman for checking on her. She then got up and walked towards the cockpit, where her group was talking about their next move.

"Man I must've been out of it if we managed to get the people of St. Binah and I didn't wake up." Valeria muttered.

They turned to her.

Jade adjusted his glasses. "Valeria, how are you feeling?"

"Still a little tired and nauseas but fine," she told him. "What's the plan?"

Everyone turned to look at Guy and he hung his head. "We're taking the people from St. Binah to Yulia city. We're also going to see if we can get any information on the from Tear's grandfather about the Sephiroth so we can try and save St. Binah."

The moment he said Sephiroth the blonde felt a jolt in her head. It felt like a wedge was being jabbed into her. Valeria put a hand to her head and leaned against the wall. "Sounds like a good idea. He should know a lot about it, being a watcher or whatever."

Jade came over to her then, dragging her away from the others.

Oh right, he was going to be upset with her. She'd actually forgotten about that until now.

"When did you finish your Mystic Arte, Valeria?"

Valeria thought about it, checking the day in her head. "If the Albiore II is as fast as I think it is, about a week ago?"

"And you idiotically decided to try it for the first time in the middle of a battle?" He asked, just to be sure.

Valeria gulped. "We were running far behind and we needed to make sure Ginji was okay, I was pretty sure I could handle it and it did end with the thing getting killed."

"Then why did you expel so many fonons? We felt that cold blast of air all the way where we were at Valeria. Are you sure you're okay?"

"I think I know what happened. I'll work on it more and test a couple of elements of it before trying it again. I'll be fine, Jade."

He stared at her for a long moment before turning back to head towards the cockpit again. "We're going to be resupplying in Yulia City, so make sure you have everything you need."

"Jade?" He stopped. "Please don't tell Aslan…"

"Tell him what?"

Valeria silently thanked him, heading back to Nyla.


They were on their way to Shurry Hill.

Apparently while she'd been off talking with a couple of people and restocking, the group had gotten some information from Teodoro and decided this was a good place to head too.

Valeria still wasn't sure how exactly the others planned on getting the passage rings to work. From what she could figure out, especially since she had a bit of information from what Lillium gave her, the passage rings were Dawn Age technology that no one in this age has any real idea on how to operate, though the Information Brokers had written their own theories from past information that had been unearthed.

And the fact that the Underworld knew more about the Sephiroth than some of the other leaders of the Outer Lands made Valeria feel a bit odd, since Daath should've known more.

At least Ion knew the coordinates and how to access the Sephiroth, something the papers had informed Valeria on what to do.

At the moment, the group was making their way out of the Albiore and towards the entrance of Shurry Hill, Ion in the lead walking next to Luke and Anise.

After walking for some time, Ion finally said they were there. Yet when they all looked around, they could see nothing. Ion made a gesture and suddenly the air shimmered and a Sephiroth door appeared before them.

Valeria smirked. "Neat trick, how'd you do it?"

"It's a protective measure for the Sephiroth. Normally we'd need the fifth fonon to activate it but it was used recently and the protective spell wouldn't have charged up enough to be fully functional without outside help." Ion explained.

"And I take it the God Generals hadn't cared about the protective measure?"

"That is correct."

Valeria hummed and moved forward, drawing her knives just in case something was inside the Sephiroth now. Luke walked with her, his hand on his sword and she nodded to him. Though the moment they walked inside the blonde almost dropped her knives in surprise and awe.

After taking a quick glance to see if there was anything about to attack them, Valeria turned around to see all around the place.

"This is amazing..." She breathed as a sudden pain hit her head.

The pain had her clutching her head, biting her lip.

—ne!—

—mber!—

—ect seals...—

—ouch sto—

The pain stopped suddenly and Valeria looked up to see Jade in front of her, his hand on her shoulder, shaking her. She blinked at him and shook her head. "Sorry... I must still be out of it from before..."

Jade didn't appear to believe her, but he let it drop for the moment and began to walk further into the Sephiroth.

They did have to fight a couple of times, but there weren't as many monsters in here that they'd thought there would be. And before long they were in front of the passage ring, each of them looking around in various stages of awe.

Guy walked closer to the fon stone and scratched his head. "This isn't your average fon machine. I don't have a clue what to do with it..." He looked over. "Valeria? Got any ideas?"

Valeria, who had been looking around the room instead of focusing, snapped her head towards Guy. "Oh... Uh..."

She walked over to the machine as Luke tilted his head. "What exactly are we supposed to do with Seventh Fonons?"

Ion stepped forward, looking up, face resting on his hand. "This is strange; the Yulian seal hasn't been removed."

"What does that mean?" Jade asked. "Did General Grants not use it...?"

"Ugh, don't tell me we came all this way for nothing?" Anise moaned.

Valeria stepped closer to the fon stone instinctively, reaching out to touch the floating stone carefully without falling off the platform. The moment her fingers grazed the stone Valeria felt the fonons within her pulse and swirl out of her body and into the air. Her energy plummeted and her knees started to give way. Nyla took that moment to grab her by her shirt and pull her back.

"Valeria?!"

"What happened?"

Valeria wondered if they actually noticed that her legs had started to give way... "Nyla didn't like the fact that I was leaning so close to the fon stone, I think she thought I was going to fall off."

That seemed to appease Natalia, though once again Jade kept a close eye on her. "Well? Thoughts on the fon machine?"

"Um..." The pain from before came back suddenly but quickly left before she could move to clutch her head.

Tear got a concerned look on her face, soValeria knew she'd seen the small flash of pain from her. The melodist came closer to her, likely wanting to try something, when she brushed against the odd book and it suddenly opened up.

"Stop," Valeria ordered Tear, pointing at the book.

Everyone looked at what she was pointing at and then up.

"It reacted to Tear," Jade observed.

"It looks like the Yulian seal is still active though," Ion told them, staring at the terminal lights above them.

Valeria looked at the screen then down at the book that was open now that Tear was touching it. Another pulse of pain hit her but this time she felt disconnected from it, staring at the book as if she'd seen it before.

"Tear... Use one of your melodies... The one for healing." She ordered suddenly.

She felt the gazes of the others on her, but Valeria was certain it would work. It didn't make entirely too much sense for her but she just had a feeling that it would work just fine. But only if it was the one for healing, anything else and the terminal would just close and make it unusable for a unknown period of time.

Tear seemed to hesitate. "I don't know the symbolism for it..."

Valeria shook her head. "It doesn't matter if you know how to use the hymn, only if you know it and can sing it."

That seemed to make the melodist feel better since she sang out the hymn after a couple seconds of though and everyone watched as the Yulian seal unlocked right in front of them.

"It says 'Warning', is that part of the Yulian seal?" Jade asked.

Ion shook his head. "I don't know."

Valeria leaned forward to look at the book. "Jade, look at this. This seems to be how you can control the passage ring."

Jade moved forward next to her and Tear, looking at the book and beginning to read. Valeria was reading too and she could tell when Jade stiffened that he'd realized exactly what she had as well.

"...You've really outdone yourself this time, General Grants."

"My brother did something to it?!"

"He closed the valve, making it impossible to revive the Sephiroth Tree."

"What does that mean?" Natalia asked hesitantly.

"It means, that we may very well be in trouble." Everyone looked at Valeria. "The passage ring is unusable because of a code locked around it."

Mieu tilted his head, climbing on Nyla's head for a better view. "Can we break the code?"

"If I could use the Seventh Fonon I'd break it myself. But..." Jade trailed off, no need to go any further.

"...What if I use hyperresonance to erase the code or whatever? That uses the Seventh Fonon, right?"

Jade looked over at Valeria, sharing a look with her as she was thinking it over. Glancing at the book for more than a minute, she weighed the options before nodding. It amused her that he seemed to think she knew a lot about these machines. She was beginning to understand them, but still...

"...If you could erase just the code, that might work."

"Luke!" Tear interrupted. "You can't control it yet...!"

"I've been practicing! Besides, if I mess up here, we're no better off than if we'd done nothing."

Valeria bit her lip as she eyed Luke. She'd gone ahead and read through further portions of the reads on the book-like device. The other apparently didn't realize that this Sephiroth covered the Engeve area as well as St. Binah, but she figured she'd at least give them this moment. Luke was right, if he couldn't break the code, then Engeve would fall no matter what as well.

"See how the diagram representing the third Sephiroth is lit up red? Erase just that part." Jade instructed.

"I'll give it a try."

While Luke began using his hyperresonance, Valeria continued to look through the terminal book, checking to see if there was anything she might be able to do with it. There appeared to be a lot of intricate workings for the machine but nothing stating that only those with Seventh Fonon could work the terminal. It only says that someone with the fonon had to activate the machine...

She filed that bit of knowledge away for another time, looking up right as Luke finished erasing the code, releasing the memory particles into the air.

Once more Valeria felt an odd sensation, and then looked around to see more fourth fonons pulsing in the air around here.

Had those come from her?

She only had a moment to think that before her knees gave out again, Nyla once more catching her. This time, Valeria climbed atop the Arka, making sure she wouldn't fall over.

What was going on? She'd never had this amount of fonons drain from her at one time, it absolutely made no sense. But as she was looking around at the fonons, she could see them getting absorbed into the fon stone in the center of the machine, the stone glowing for a moment before going back to normal.

As this was going on, the rest of the group was going on about how happy they were that the hyperresonance did the trick and St. Binah wasn't going to fall. Though when Luke started thanking everyone even Valeria had to admit that wasn't usual from him and stared open mouthed.

"Oh no! Wait!" Anise cried out. "It's too soon to be celebrating! Look at that!"

It appeared that the Fon Master Guardian had realized what Valeria had already figured out.

"Yep, the entire Rugnica Plains is supposed to be supported by this Sephiroth."

"You don't seem too surprised about that news," Jade noted.

"I looked ahead and paid attention. I didn't think mentioning it when I figured it out would've been relevant since Luke was still deciding about whether or not to use his hyperresonance to try and fix it."

"This is seriously bad for Engeve!" Anise told them, her eyes narrowing on Valeria. "Why not mention it sooner?!

"It doesn't matter," Natalia stated. "We have to get back to the Outer Lands and evacuate the people from Engeve!"

Valeria hung her head. "And to think, we'd just moved the people of St. Binah there, it's going to be interesting explaining to them how they have to move once more..."

Tear took this to mean that we were done with the terminal and let her hands fall off of the book. Valeria, who had been looking over at the time, noticed when Tear winced slightly. She then put her hands against her chest and looked deep in thought.

"…Tear, you okay?"

"Just a bit tired, I guess. I'm fine, though." She assured.

"Then we should probably go check on the situation in the Outer Lands." Jade told them, turning to head out of the Sephiroth.


Nyla being protective is going to have a big impact on some major plot later on in the story. I want to say it's going to get better, but in truth it will likely get worse when the plot goes down... Oh well! Happy 4th everyone!