"Remind me why we aren't chasing these guys," Tidus said.
Jack said, "Queen can't get them pinned."
"Sounds like a lousy excuse," Lightning muttered.
They paced Bevelle's promenade, whose stature gave them the vantage needed to see most of the city at once. Seven thought it a poor imitation of action but sitting on their hands became a recurring habit once Bhunivelze opted to hide out and let his goons do the work.
"It's not like we can just find their trail," Sazh said with Dajh on his heels. "I know you want to go crush their heads right now, but we can't go running off without a plan. That's what Bhunivelze wants."
"Don't say his name," Lightning said.
"Kinda hard to do that when he's our target right now."
"I don't care."
"Fine." Sazh waved a hand. "Big light monster wants us demoralized and weak, but we gotta keep our heads, hm? That better?"
"No."
"Just give Queen time," Jack said. "She'll find them. Probably."
"Look." Sazh pulled her aside. "I know you don't think you're good at this. But our team needs you and you need us."
"I'm sick of fighting these people."
"So are the rest of us. I agree with you that this is stupid and unfair. If you wanna yell at me and get it off your chest, I'm good with that. Anything to get your head back in the game."
"I don't want to."
Sazh gave a heavy sigh. "Don't make me deal with it by myself, okay? These kids don't listen to me like they do to you."
"Not to interrupt," Tidus said, "but I've talked to spirits before and they might have something useful to say for once. You know, put ghost trackers on these dudes or something."
Lightning gave Sazh a reluctant nod and he put his hands together in thanks. Seven thought it an odd dynamic they shared.
"The Council?" Seven asked.
"I don't know. Said his name was 'Minwu.' Is he 'Council?'"
"Probably." Lightning said. "Talk about hypocritical, telling us to leave people alone when they mess with civilians every day."
Seven took a door and followed the stairs to the ground floor, where she exited into Bevelle's streets. How many more palace cities would she encounter in her world traveling?
Lightning joined her and, without saying anything, made for the palace proper. The others didn't follow. Seven hesitated before going after her.
They walked in silence until the palace doors where Lightning asked, "What's bothering you?"
"Shouldn't I be the one asking?"
"I don't like talking about my problems."
"Nor do I." Seven folded her arms and waited for the priests to let them in and guide them to the upper hallways before saying, "I thought it obvious."
"We'll catch these bastards."
"Will we? Because I've been chasing Bhunivelze since Ivalice and it's gone nowhere."
Lightning scowled and went quiet. They made it to Yuna's office and Lightning put a hand on the door. Turned to Seven. "You wanna give up?"
Seven hesitated.
"No one will blame you if you do."
"I won't give up."
"Why not?"
"I have my reasons."
"Good." Lightning released the handle. "That makes one of us."
They entered Yuna's office to see her sorting glowing spheres. Seven found the sight familiar.
Yuna didn't look up. "I assume you wouldn't be here if you found the perpetrators. What's stalled your progress?"
"Can't trace them," Lightning said. "Unless you have any better suggestions, we're leaving."
"Oh." Yuna paused her work and looked at them. "So soon?"
"Not much reason to stay," Seven said.
Yuna looked between them, brow furrowed. "Are you related?"
"No," they said together.
Lightning turned for the door. "If you don't have anything else, then we'll be going."
"I don't." Yuna sounded reluctant.
Seven touched her head before joining Lightning and said, "There's a portal below the palace. We'll need to take the basement, looks like."
Lightning followed her down the hall. "'Looks like?'"
"Queen's losing her touch on space. Noel's probably sucking it from her."
Lightning tensed at that. Seven held back from apologizing for the truth.
They moved on down the stairs and past offices. The staff gave them a wide berth, most shuffling past faster than their robes should allow.
"Pardon me!" shouted a boy that ran past them with a girl friend traveling behind. "Coming through!"
Lightning let them pass. "We won't displace you."
"I don't expect you to," Seven said.
"You feel threatened, don't you?"
"… We'll get over it."
They found the others near the palace entrance and they arranged to leave again. Tidus and Jack took some prying apart, though, as they wouldn't stop talking about swords.
Seven updated them on their itinerary and forgot the frustration of embarking on another pointless trip. She instead found herself preoccupied with Lightning's assurance. What a time when she worried more about the perceptions of each other within their collection than preventing mass chaos.
Vaan stood with Penelo in front of the "Gippal" that Baralai sent them to, the process of which took a whole week to pull off. Why would he send them on such a roundabout path when he could have told them to just go to Bevelle? People said that Gippal hadn't done much outside Bevelle for ages.
"The former praetor's sphere?" Gippal asked. "But he's dead. And he had dozens of spheres. Are you sure he didn't say anything else?"
Vaan shook his head. "He can be a cryptic guy sometimes. It's not a coded message or something?"
"Coded message…" Gippal looked between them. "Where did you say you were from again?"
"Ivalice," Penelo said. "Have you heard of it?"
"Not until now." Gippal keyed something into his device and flipped it onto its side. "But I'm very interested. How about you tell me everything you've been doing up until this point?"
"He did tell us to take our time," Vaan said to Penelo.
"Maybe Bhunivelze took him again."
"He acts very differently when under the influence."
"But maybe Bhunivelze's learned to fake it. This isn't the first time he's sent us away, you know."
"But it's the first time since we first formed the Guild."
Gippal watched them with a contorted eye. "I'm sorry, he's what? Still possessed?"
"You know about it?" Vaan asked. "Man, it's been so hush-hush I thought most people weren't told. I know Larsa did his darndest to hide it."
"Larsa was embarrassed," Penelo said. "I think a lot of people are."
"But it's not like they asked to be possessed."
"No, but it's easier to lose yourself when your mind is in a bad place, and it shows weakness. Not that you would think about that kind of stuff, I guess."
"Why think about it when I can do stuff that matters instead?"
"Okay," Gippal said, "focus. We've all been kinda locked out of the loop here because these visiting gods won't tell us jack squat. Tell me what's happening on your end."
"It's kind of a long story," Penelo said. "And I don't like talking about my friends to strangers."
"But Baralai sent you straight to me."
Vaan put up a finger. "Because he trusts you."
"And you don't?"
"No."
Gippal waved a hand. "Forget it. I'll talk to you about spheres. Did he say what he wanted it for?"
Vaan and Penelo shook their heads.
Gippal let out a long breath through his nose. "I can work with that."
"But can you?" Penelo asked. "It sounds like it's important for the war against Bhunivelze."
"Yeah, about that." Gippal put his hands together and pointed them her way. "I don't think you're looking for one specific thing."
"What does that mean?"
"Baralai's an incredibly frustrating dude. He'll ask for you to do one thing and mean for you to come back with another, you know, like he does?"
"No," Penelo said. "At least, I don't think so. He seemed pretty happy with what we brought back from II and Ruin…"
"Yeah, thing is, the kid's got good at lying. After how long he's spent playing the politics game, that should be expected."
Vaan perked up. "You mean he's been lying to us?"
"Probably."
"Why?"
Gippal shrugged. "It was hard enough to understand him before he went evil and left."
"He might want us out of the way," Penelo said. "Or, like I said, he could be possessed again."
"He's not possessed."
"Maybe not by a spirit," Gippal said, "though his track record doesn't support him much. No, he's probably just got some strange, nihilistic reason for sending you away. Wait, let me guess, he likes you two."
"Yes," Vaan said at the same time that Penelo said, "No."
"So, he likes you. That means one of two things—one, that he wants you safe, or two, that he doesn't like the good influence you two have on him. Honestly, I tend to assume the former, but I've seen him distance himself from Paine when she gets all nice around him."
"Are they dating?" Vaan asked.
"Maybe in their own way. But that's beside the point—you two either gotta get back where you were really fast or you gotta take as much time away from there as possible."
Vaan frowned. "I won't let him turn evil again. If it's like Basch, he just needs the right influence."
"We won't let it go that far." Penelo looked around them. "But I don't see a lot of point to going back right now. I doubt Bhunivelze's going to strike again any time soon. Wait, does time even matter given that we're hopping across space?"
"Maybe." Gippal moved toward the door. "It seems to vary by method, but don't ask me for details because I've got better things to do than study the ways that travelers go places. Come on, you two, let's hurry up and wait."
"Wait for what?" Vaan asked.
"Might as well send you back with something." Gippal took them downstairs and Vaan cringed away from the dark corners of the palace. This place gave him shivers.
"Where are we going?" Penelo asked.
"Somewhere terrible and horrifying. You'll see your worst nightmares and lay awake for months after."
"Stop," Penelo said, "or you'll upset Vaan."
Vaan shook his head. "Disappoint him, more like. I thought we were going somewhere exciting."
They arrived in what Gippal called the Via Infinito and he told them about how it used to house all sorts of studies of religion, spheres, and history.
"I don't see how," Vaan said. The ground felt cold despite his boots and the gaps between wall and floor allowed for someone to trip and fall through nothingness.
"Do you smell that?" Gippal asked. "That incense? We like to claim it's because of diligent rituals, but it's really thanks to this place. This palace soaks it in death every day."
Penelo walked to the edge of their platform and looked over the misty edge. "I hear something down there."
"That's another perk," Gippal said. "Fiends materialize here all the time. Some of our friends came through and cleared out a bunch a year ago, but you can't tell anymore."
"I don't see what this has to do with fixing Baralai," Vaan said.
"You want to bring him a sphere," Gippal said. "There's more scattered about this place. If you want one that doesn't require all the paperwork and headache you can imagine, then you'll want to shoot down this place instead."
"That's better than paperwork."
"Exactly."
"You have fiends that generate down here?" Penelo asked.
Gippal grimaced. "That's the thing—they shouldn't generate. They don't pop up out of nowhere because once a spirit is sent, they shouldn't come back. But we've been seeing more and more creatures show up like this and it's worst down here. If you could figure out why that is, that's another bonus for you. I might pay you."
"I'll take money," Vaan said.
Penelo scowled. "We probably couldn't spend it anywhere but here."
"Then buy something nice for yourself," Gippal said. "It's up to you. I'm inclined to blow this whole place sky-high if it weren't for the people up top."
Vaan pulled his sword free and Penelo reluctantly readied her staff. Gippal thanked them for their time and left.
"Better get started," Vaan said.
Penelo tested a white spell and moved to the glyph that took them a level down.
Vaan felt a thrill of excitement before he joined her. They hadn't done a dungeon raid since leaving Ivalice!
He didn't have all the answers he wanted, but this made up for that.
"Would you kill me?"
Rufus didn't understand her words at first. But when he turned to face her, Krile looked dead serious. With the papers scattered on the bed about her, she could pass for doing homework. "Why would I kill you?" he asked.
"Because I might turn evil again."
"You're too strong for that."
Krile scowled at the papers. "I'm not strong enough to understand what I'm reading."
"It's a foreign world with foreign concepts. It'll take time."
"We don't have time. You said that."
Rufus lost focus on his own papers. "We're making do with what we have. To be ultimately efficient, we can't spend all our time planning. We have to assume that any moment could be our last and work to get something done before it's too late."
"Why not just kill ourselves?"
"Stop that."
"I mean it."
Rufus shoved his papers away. "Killing ourselves is weakness. We're in a unique position where we can hit Bhunivelze where it hurts."
"But killing ourselves gives Him one less opening." Krile refused to look at him. "It would save time and it would be efficient.
"He would just replace us with someone weaker-willed."
Krile went quiet at that and looked everywhere but at him. "I'm tired."
"Then take a break. If you rest then you'll make your working hours count for more." Rufus moved to take her papers, but Krile slapped a hand down to hold them back.
"I can help," she said.
"But you don't want to."
"I said I was tired. I didn't say I didn't want to help."
Rufus slumped into a spot beside her on the bed and remembered wanting his father to sit beside him. "Then I don't know what to tell you."
"… How many people did you kill? Deliberately?"
"Too many."
"How many?"
Rufus struggled to remember. Everything people said about remembering names and dates and places rang as hollow to him. After his first order of execution, what counted as his or someone else's blurred. "Two," he lied.
"Did they hurt?"
"Some."
Krile took a long deep breath and her eyes reddened.
"I said I'll keep you from dying," Rufus said.
"But you said we could both—"
"I meant that I might die and you'll get away. Just don't— it'll work out. I have backup on this world that I can call on."
Krile visibly calmed and Rufus wished he could say they'd stay here forever. But Bhunivelze wasn't on this planet.
He stood when he caught sight of a man in dark street clothes outside. "Got a shadow."
Krile followed his gaze. "How did they find us?"
"I don't know." Rufus got to collecting their research. "Unless you want to do something with this one, too, we should get out before he finds us. Get your things, we need to leave."
"No, I have to try something first!"
Rufus' heart dropped to his stomach and Krile bolted out the room. "Wait!" he yelled.
He followed her to the main hall where she opened the door to greet Prompto. Rufus contained his curses and kept behind the wall. Prompto would know their locations anyway, but by life's light, he had to try.
"Where are you from?" Krile asked.
"Just from Gaia III. Unless you're talking natively…"
Rufus could only listen as they conversed in light tones. Krile wanted to break this one, too.
"Not to hurry you," Prompto said, "but can I come in? I have to check some things in the basement."
Rufus remembered to breathe. Bhunivelze wasn't a liar despite everything, so if Prompto didn't come to deal with them, then they were safe. For now.
Krile kept Prompto distracted and that gave Rufus a chance to get back to work. They never knew when a moment might be their last so it was best they take advantage of it. But he couldn't bring himself to leave Krile alone.
"Will you tell me about it?" Krile asked Prompto. "I'd love to see what you're working on!"
"I don't know what you'd want to know."
"Everyone's got super exciting stories they never thought about before. I want to hear yours!"
"Again, I don't know—"
Rufus watched them disappear into the basement. Prompto could snap Krile back to where she was.
… Damn him, Rufus couldn't let that happen.
He followed them at a distance, careful not to make a sound as he left the main floor and traveled the rickety stairs into the basement. He and Krile cleared out many of the monsters that plagued this place when they first arrived, but some still watched from shadowed corners as he stalked their guest.
Why did he sneak? If Prompto didn't come after Krile, he surely wouldn't come after Rufus.
He forced himself to move in a more natural way. Eventually he found the two in what remained of Hojo's lab, whose walls shone with the Lifestream's light.
"Would you enlighten us on your goal here?" Rufus asked Prompto.
Krile startled at his appearance and Prompto made a sound of distress. "What's the surprise attack for?" Prompto asked. "We're all on the same side, aren't we?"
"I don't see why not."
"He's been through a lot," Krile said. "I can understand why he's jumpy. And you're really quiet, Mr. Shinra."
Rufus remembered to keep his eye on Prompto. "So you've said."
"What are you two doing here, anyway?" Prompto asked.
"Clearing something up."
Krile coughed and said, "We'd love to help you, Mr. Prompto, but you seem pretty distracted. Maybe we should let you work for now."
"Yeah. Sure." Prompto looked back to the Lifestream and Rufus caught uncertainty in his posture. Bhunivelze must have figured something gnarly out for him to hesitate so much. "Thanks for your help, Krile. Our cause is… closer for it."
Krile beamed at Rufus as if that was a magical revelation.
"Let's go." Shinra put his hand out and Krile took it before they made for the stairs. Once out of earshot, Krile told him everything she learned from Prompto. But it was all nonsense about helping people and clearing things between worlds.
"Wait." Rufus stopped in their research room. "Didn't we lose Prompto to that guild on Gaia III? Where you came back from?"
"Bhunivelze took him back that same night."
"But you were half-broken from that."
"My friends were there. I don't know about Prompto's people. Bhunivelze knows how to reclaim people, though, so…"
"That doesn't seem right." Rufus returned to packing their things. "We're leaving. I have one more world to check."
"That's what you said about this one."
"Because this is where my lead took me. Now we have another."
"You have the energy to move?"
"Almost. We'll find somewhere away from Prompto and rest up before we hop again. Spending a single night in the city won't kill us."
Krile was confused, but she followed him without another question. Rufus felt a fluttering, desperate hope that Bhunivelze would leave them alone for one more world.
Just one more world.
