"I want to investigate it."

"We're goin' to Rocket Town!"

Cristobel threw up her hands. "And what if there's something in that sunken gelnika, Cid? It's one of Shin-Ra's cargo planes, just like the one that took the last Huge Materia to Rocket Town. I want to investigate it!"

"Goddammit, what the hell do they think they're gonna do to my rocket?" Instead of answering her, Cid viciously kicked the submarine's hull, and then stomped toward the waiting Highwind. "I'm outta here, Cloud! I'm gonna kick those damn Shin-Ra right out of my rocket!"

Cristobel, choosing some choice phrases from Cid's own repertoire, swore at him, but he ignored her. She appealed to Cloud. "You saw it down there too, didn't you? We should investigate while we have the chance!"

"You heard Reno. Their priority is the Huge Materia. We're goin' to Rocket Town," he decided, staring at something past her left ear.

She glared at him, hoping to cow him into changing his mind, but he, too, ignored her.

"We don't all have to go," Tifa said reasonably. "We'll split up and meet back here. I want to know why the airplane went down there, too."

Cristobel gave her a smile of pure gratitude.

"All right," Cloud said, quietly giving in. "But be careful."

"Aren't I always?" Tifa said with a sparkle.

Nanaki expressed his inclination to ride in the sub, and so he joined them. Yuffie flat refused and sequestered herself inside Highwind.

"You all come back now, you hear?" Barret shouted over the roar of Highwind's engines.

Carefully, Cristobel piloted their stolen sub for the sunken gelnika, keeping a wary eye out for the giant planet-borne monster traversing the ocean's depths – what the Shin-Ra were calling Emerald Weapon through their radios. When the sub's headlight beams swam over the crippled plane, they also slid over the hull of a second silver sub already waiting outside.

Cristobel docked, and they boarded the gelnika.

"What is this place?" Nanaki asked, the fur around his shoulders standing up, his flaming tail swishing. He sniffed briefly at the plane's metal flooring and advanced at a stalking pace into a side room. His voice echoed when he called back to them. "Must be some kind of a research establishment because there's a mako generator."

They looted a few chests, battling fiercely through the unpleasant monsters that had made the sunken cargo plane their home, before they ran through an aft door.

Tifa pulled up short, her slender body ducking into its battle stance. "Turks!"

Two blue-suited figures crouched at the far end of the room, amid the ceiling drips and floor puddles of cold seawater, working at removing the bulkhead plating.

"Again?" Rude sighed, turning around.

Reno chucked down his screwdriver and stood up indignantly. "We just seem to keep running into each other lately!"

"What are you doing here?" Cristobel asked.

"There were weapons and materia developed solely to destroy Sephiroth," Reno said after one of Rude's customary pauses, and then his partner took over in his deep, slow voice.

"But, it was attacked by Weapon and sunk to the bottom of the sea."

Reno shook his head. "I can't give you what's here. We'll take out Sephiroth. I guess this is our last meeting."

"Really?" Cristobel pretended to think about it. "Guess we can't hold back then. There's nowhere for you to run this time."

"I won't let you get in our way," Rude said, more sharply than was usual for him.

With a howl that turned the room into the inside of a clock tower bell, Nanaki rushed Rude. The big Turk caught Nanaki's paws in his hands, twisted them, and slammed the big, lion-like creature into the deck. Tifa and Cristobel went after Reno while the other two wrestled with a sound like a pack of levrikons fighting over dinner. Tifa harried Reno with her fists, parrying the electro mag-rod, and Cristobel got in close enough to actually take his ring.

"Yo!" he cried, trying to push past Tifa, but she was having none of it and forced him back again.

"So what's this do?" Cristobel asked, gloating.

He laughed. "You're fast, aren't you? It's a tough ring."

"Nice." It came from his littlest finger, and almost fit her thumb.

"That's mine," he said, flinging an electropod attack at Tifa that sent her spinning into the tangle of Rude and Nanaki.

"Come and get it," Cristobel taunted.

"Tifa!" Nanaki roared. "Tifa, stop!"

Cristobel whipped around. Tifa seemed to be confused; she advanced on Nanaki while a bleeding Rude collected himself. Cristobel started to cast white wind, a skill she had learned from a giant zemzelett bird, to recover Tifa's senses and some of their collective health, but Reno struck at her. Instinctively, she brought up her staff.

Cristobel knew that, with her limited ability and experience, a fighter like Reno should be able to wipe the floor with her, but he did nothing more than keep her busy as if he were a teacher putting her through her paces. However, Nanaki, squaring off with both a comrade and an enemy, wouldn't last long and needed her assistance. Reno's interference started to make her mad.

"Hey, I thought you told your partner over there not to go easy on us because we're girls," she grunted. He rewarded her with a thwack that made her fingers go numb. Then, he pushed her into the bulkhead, trapping her staff in such a way that it was useless to her.

"I might go even easier if you give me your number," he said in a low voice.

"Oh, that's real smooth," she snapped. "I won't be bought out. If you want the spy, you have to talk to the cat."

"Too bad. Maybe next time." He straightened. "Rude! Let's go."

With a last, teasing grin, he left. Belatedly, Cristobel's heart picked up on what he'd asked and kicked into overdrive, but she cast the white wind spell on her friends as soon as she could. Tifa woozily straightened, laying apologetic hands on Nanaki, and then she looked up at Cristobel with horrified eyes and cried, "Are you all right?"

"Fine. Are you okay?" Cristobel said quickly. Neither of her friends had noticed what had actually happened with Reno, which was probably for the best.

Next time.

Meteor was still falling. Outer space had issued the planet a death sentence on Sephiroth's orders. Regret of a different kind uncurled in Cristobel's middle.

Would there be a next time?