Chapter 5: Meanwhile...
And the plot moved forward. Yay.
Yes, Quistis now had a new member in her group, Rosencrantz, that creepy looking Fight Club reject. And now, the four of them hurried toward the front gates of the Duke's manor in order to find "that one girl" as Ashley so eloquently put it. As expected, it was dead quiet outside, and there were dead bodies all over the place. Quistis cringed a bit at the sight of it all, but managed to recompose herself rather quickly. All she had to do was just make through all this, and she was home free with Sydney and whoever was that other sorcerer.
"Oh, dear," Rosencrantz began, breaking the silence, "It seems that the Blades took quite a substantial loss here."
"Of course," Sydney grinned, "I sent D'tok off to deal with the lot of them! However..." He sniffled, "He didn't make it." He pointed to a huge blackened lizard skeleton. "They killed my little D'tokky-wokky-poo--"
"--Oh, Lord, that thing actually had a name?" Ashley sighed, shaking his head.
"Why wouldn't he? I've had him since he hatched from his little egg. He was so cute, with his little forked tongue and his little wings and--"
"--Stop please."
"Oh, sorry."
Ashley sighed and marched ahead of the group, "You know, Losstarot, if you weren't a man, I'd swear that you were going to grow old and live by yourself with your fifty cats. Oops, I mean wyverns. "
"I hate you," Sydney sneered in reply. Quistis and Rosencrantz glanced at each other and shrugged.
It wasn't long before they reached the gates, which were wide open. Ashley, who was still ahead of everyone else, stopped. He turned and gestured to the others to be quiet, and proceeded cautiously ahead. The rest followed as directed, though Sydney was a bit more reluctant due to Ashley's mocking his widdle D'tokky-poo.
As they followed the bare ass riskbreaker, Rosencrantz turned to Quistis and whispered, "Aren't you a bit...disturbed by the fact that Agent Riot left his partner behind?"
"Just a little," she shrugged, "Though, I can think of a couple times where I was paired up with a partner that I would had left behind." Her face darkened as she thought of when Rinoa got her locked inside of General Caraway's mansion. With Zell and Selphie. All by herself. With those two. It's a wonder that she's still sane. Then she thought about how Squall forced them all to go into space, for Rinoa, who repaid them by releasing Adel. Then she thought about being stuck in Fishermen's Horizon, because Rinoa had got herself injured being a dumb-ass in Galbania. THEN she thought about how Rinoa started that whole mess by leading Seifer on and convincing Headmaster Cid to dispatch their SeeD group out to "help" Rinoa's wannabe terrorist group. And yes, in her head, she said "terrorist". Then Rinoa stole her man! Oh, and cheated on Seifer, but that's a different story. Well, not really, but you get my drift, er Quistis' drift.
"Um, Lady Quistis?" Rosencrantz asked tapping her on the shoulder.
"ARGH! I HATE THAT BITCH!" she screeched in reply. Everyone turned and looked at Quistis, who suddenly realized that she was thinking out loud.
Sydney scratched his head, "We haven't even found her yet, deary."
"Oh, I was thinking of a comrade of mine," Quistis mumbled in reply.
"She hardly sounds like a comrade, if you hate her that much," Rosencrantz shrugged. Ashley and Sydney both nodded in agreement.
"It's more like a 'forced' partnership."
"Is that the partner that you would leave behind?" the pierced man snickered, amused.
"I'd drown her, if given the go ahead. The world would be a better place without her."
Ashley lifted a brow, "That's rather harsh."
"No it's not. Trust me, it's stupid people that cause all the world's problems." Quistis stretched and began walking again.
"Amen to that," Sydney mumbled in reply.
"Besides, aren't we supposed to be looking for your partner?" she added, as she moved ahead of her companions.
"Well, yes," Ashley shrugged, he jogged to catch up with the blonde SeeD. He smiled fondly at her, "I hope she isn't dead." Which was one of the more sensitive things Ashley had ever said about a woman, when he wasn't trying to get in her pants, that is.
The four of them walked out the gates cautiously after that, and toward a underground cellar, as directed by Sydney and Rosencrantz. The blonde priest moved ahead to lead the group through and clanked down the stone stairs. However, he paused halfway.
"What's wrong?" Ashley asked. Sydney turned around and put a metal finger to his lips to shoosh everyone. Then they heard it:
". . .And your father hated your girlfriend! Oh yes, is that why you decided to bed a man later in life?"
"ARGH! QUIT WITH YOUR INSANE DIVELING, WOMAN!"
"The hell?" mumbled Rosencrantz.
Sydney smirked, "We found Hardin. What good fortune!" Ashley and Quistis both frowned at each other and watched the buttcaped mage as he continued down the stairs. The other three followed reluctantly into the wine cellar, and just as Sydney had stated, there was Hardin at the bottom of the stairs, covering his ears and screaming. Behind him stood Callo Merlose.
The inquistor noticed Ashley, "By the gods! Agent Riot, you're alive!" She ran up the stairs and nearly jumped in his arms. The only thing that stopped her was the fact that Quistis was staring HARD at the other woman. But mostly because, she was wondering how the hell Merlose was walking in those steel boots. The whole Ashley thing was secondary. Eeyeah.
"Uh, glad to see that you are safe as well," Ashley mumbled as he and the others finished going down the stairs. Hardin ran up to Sydney and grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Get me away from this madwoman! She reads the hearts of men!" the older priest pointed at Merlose, who blinked stupidly at Hardin's ranting. Sydney shrugged.
"I think she goes with us," he began; the mage then turned his attention to Ashley. "Is this the woman you were speaking of, riskbreaker?"
"Yeah, whatever," Ashley replied.
"Oh, good, that means we can go on into Lea Monde from here," Sydney nodded. "I was starting to get really irritated with all the set backs..."
Rosencrantz butted in, "There's another problem, Sydney." He pointed to a fresh corpse in the corner of the cellar near a barred door. The corpse was of a Crimsom Blade, still wearing all of his armor; he had been clawed to death.
"Oh....shit," Sydney mumbled as he snapped his metal fingers in disappointment.
And Merlose responded as she looked over at the dead soldier wide eyed, "There's bears in there?"
"No," both the buttcaped priest and the pierced riskbreaker mumbled.
Sydney continued, "The Blades have made their way into the city." He sighed heavily and buried his face his palms, "By Iocus, this day just keeps getting better...."
*****
Zell ran like a moron down the street to get as far away from that bar as he could. He was very hungry and wanted a hotdog, but as we all know, there's no hotdogs in Limbergh. That, and he couldn't afford one anyway, even if there were some. He cursed himself as he sprinted, since he has the worst luck. Okay, not really. Compared to his comrades, he was doing pretty damned well. But he didn't know that. But you do. Smile at the dramatic irony of it all and have a beer.
He turned a corner into an alleyway and stopped to catch his breath. There wasn't an angry mob behind him, but he figured as soon as someone found that other 500 gil bill, he was in trouble. And it didn't help that he was wearing really bright, annoying clothes and had a big ass tattoo on his face, to which he could easily be spotted. He needed another plan.
"You know....If I could just get back to Kuja's ship, I could start over and maybe do a better job teleporting myself," he thought outloud. He glanced around and peeked around the corner. Still no mob, or bartender, or monkey boy. He sighed with relief and continued down the alleyway. He stopped and decided that going back to the ship was indeed the best thing to do.
However, a little voice in his head said, "But Zell, Kuja said not to come back unless you had the princess!"
"Oh, screw that!" Zell yelled back to the voice, "I'm going to get ripped apart if I don't!" He shoved his hand in his shorts pocket until he found the little teleporter doodad and hit the button to send him back. Oh sure, he wasn't going to get laid right away, but it was an emergency.
*****
"Oh, Selphie!~" Kid sang, a wicked grin across her face. The SeeD merc was sitting by herself in Miki's dressing room when Kid had finally found her. "I heard ye were looking for a sorceress."
"Hm?" Selphie lifted her head, both interested that Kid had known that and very frightened that she was being nice. The blonde grinned and sat down next to the other girl. Selphie stared wide eyed at Kid.
"Oh, now don't be acting afraid of me," Kid replied pleasantly, "I just wanna help you with your search." She then extended a hand, "And I think the two of us got off on the wrong foot, yeah? So, friends?"
Selphie stared down at the hand, "Why are you being nice to me all of the sudden?" Kid blinked and then frowned.
"Okay, fine. Nevermind that I 'appen to know that Lynx is keeping a sorceress on his ship--"
"--He is?!" Selphie grabbed Kid by the shoulders. "That's crazy! Norris said that we weren't going to go near Lynx until we found whatshisface!"
"Oh, that's Norris for you... He just doesn't want you to find out how weak he really is," Kid sighed lightly. This was too easy. "He's not even half the leader that Serge is. It's really obvious."
"Even so, how am I going to get to Lynx?" Selphie pulled back, crossed her arms, and sighed.
"I said I'd help."
"Why should I trust you?" The SeeD lifted a brow, "You hit me in the head with a rock."
"THAT WAS AN ACCIDENT!" Kid stood up and pointed down at Selphie, veins popping out of her neck as she heaved angrily at the other girl. "I'M ALLOWED TO MAKE MISTAKES, AREN'T I?!"
"All you have to say is sorry," Selphie squeaked.
"Oh. Sorry," Kid recomposed herself. "So, now will you work with me?"
"Okay, but how do we get past Norris?"
Kid grinned, "I've taken care of that..." Outside the door, Norris was sprawn out cold. He had been hit in the head with a rock. A big rock.
*****
Irvine, Cid, and Yuffie were all still sitting in the living room of Tifa's place. The others still weren't home, and so the trio sat doing nothing. Isn't it exciting? Finally, from the basement, Vincent emerged, looking very vampire-like. But as all people that paid attention to the game know, he's not really a vampire, but a human with biomechanical body enhancements that prolong his life and youth and allow him to morph into various creatures at will. But I digress.
"Ah, that was refreshing nap in my coffin," Vincent sighed pleasantly in his very thick Romanian accent that he had for some strange reason. Irvine turned his head and nearly jumped out of his seat at the sight of Vincent. Yuffie giggled and jumped up to hug the ex-Turk.
"It's Vinny!" she sang in a high pitched squeaky voice. So high pitched and squeaky that Irvine and Cid cringed. Vincent did too, but it was hard to tell since he was also wincing in pain from the very tight hug that Yuffie had him locked him.
"Hi....Yuffie...." Vincent gasped as his face turned blue from lack of air. She finally let go of him, and he collasped on the floor.
Cid lifted a brow and turned to Irvine, "See what I mean?" The cowboy nodded and frowned at the ninja girl who was happily kneeling next to the ailing freak of nature and stroking his really pretty long black hair.
"You must be Vincent," Irvine called over to Vincent and tipped his hat. The ex-Turk nodded weakly and sat up.
"And you are?" Vincent asked as he tried to push Yuffie off of him.
"He's a big dork," Yuffie replied before the redhead could answer. The darkhaired man blinked once and then managed to completely shove the ninja off of him and stood up to shake hands with Irvine.
"Irvine," the cowboy nodded.
"Ah, nice to meet you. Forgive Yuffie, she..."
"Has issues. I know." Vincent smiled and sat down between Cid and Irvine. Yuffie pouted on the floor silently until the there was a knock at the door.
"I'll get it!" she sang.
Cid turned his head and watched the girl run toward the door. "I hope that's a collection agency here to arrest her." The two other men chuckled. Meanwhile, Yuffie opened the door, and there was a tall man wearing a badly pasted on fake black mustache standing before her. Beneath the baseball hat he wore that had a piece of paper taped to it with "POSTMAN" scrawled on it in magic marker, there were a few silver strands of hair poking out. Yuffie also paid no mind to that fact that the mail doesn't come in the evening, while we're at it.
"Oh! Mail!" she chirped as the mailman handed her a letter then ran off cackling madly. She looked at who it was addressed to and frowned. "Clod? Who the hell is Clod?"
*****
"Okay, listen up," Tseng began to his now fricking huge group of, uh, people, "We're going to break up into two groups--"
"--Well, duh!" Reno sneered, "We were in two groups anyway!"
"Just for that, you're in the group with Seifer, Serge, and Fuujin." Reno blinked and looked over to his new posse. Serge smiled and waved, then nudged Raijin, who was asleep in his seat. Tseng continued, "Elena, Raijin, Rude, and myself will be the group that takes care of Sephiroth. All you guys have to do is find him and trap him."
"......" Serge sighed.
"Serge has a point, you know, that's easier said than done," Raijin yawned as he straightened up in his seat. Reno pouted and crossed his arms. Rude, on the other hand, beamed, since he didn't have to deal with Reno this time around.
"I have faith in Seifer's abilities," Tseng added as he cut his eyes at Reno again.
"......" chuckled Serge.
Seifer sat up looked over at Serge and sniffled, "You're so mean! You didn't have to say that!"
*****
Squall was sitting with his striker group in the lounge outside of the hanger of that bigass Gelber ship that Ramsus commands. I'd go look up the name, but I don't feel like pull out my book and translating right now, so deal with it. They didn't like him much. Okay, actually they were all cool with him, except Vance. But Vance was the loudest, so Squall felt uncomfortable.
"Yeah, you think you're pretty, huh?!" Vance sneered.
"Uh, no," Squall replied.
"Yeah, you think you're bad, huh?!"
Renk slapped Vance upside the head, "Vance, shut up." Everyone nodded in agreement and proceeded to take turns slapping the redhead upside the head until Elly entered the room.
She frowned until she saw that it was Vance getting slapped, then shrugged and smiled.
"Hey, sorry to break up your fun, guys, but we've got orders now," she announced. Everyone stopped hitting Vance after their superior officer annouced that, except Helmholz who punched Vance one last time before turning his attention to girl. "We get to blow up a reactor in Nortune!"
"WOOHOO!" the all guys cheered, except Squall. But only because he didn't know where Nortune was. Oh, wait, who am I kidding? He didn't cheer because he's Squall.
"So, are you going to be our squad leader?" Squall asked quietly as he leaned back into his seat. The girl shook her head and sat down next to him.
"Nope, Captain Yizkor's heading everything," Elly smiled.
"Dominia...." sighed Helmholz dreamily. Broyer and Stratski exchanged disgusted looks after their comrade said that. Elly turned and blinked at the violet haired boy then as Squall shrugged.
"Whatever," the SeeD merc replied.
*****
Norris woke up in the dressing room on Nikki's boat. He sat up and rubbed the back of his head, which was still throbbing from where Kid had hit him. Then he noticed that Leena was sitting next to him, knitting.
"How long was I out?" he asked, his hand moving to the back his neck.
The redhead shrugged, "Oh, about half a day..."
"That long?" he sighed and laid back down. "I'm guessing that Kid took off with Selphie, right?"
"Um hm," Leena replied, keeping her eyes on her yarn.
"Okay, now what did I do?"
"Nothing. I don't have to talk to you. You're not a replacement for Serge, remember?" Norris rolled his eyes and sat back up.
"Okay, I get your drift, and I'm sorry," he mumbled. "Have the guys made any attempt to find Selphie?"
"Where do you think everyone is?" Leena put down her knitting. "You know, I'm the only one that even wanted to stay with you, you know, just in case you started bleeding from your ears--"
"--Stop it, you're not helping." Norris sighed, "I can't believe that Kid would do that!"
"I can," Leena shrugged. "And I told Serge from day one that she was trouble. But no! No one ever listens to me, the little homemaker! Sure, just because Kid wears short shorts, she's can't be all bad! Oh no! I'm bad because I wear a skirt that covers my ankles. . ."
Norris rolled his eyes, plopped back down, and covered his head with a pillow as Leena continued to bitch.
*****
"We're back~!" Aerith and Rinoa sang as they entered Tifa's apartment. Irvine and Vincent both looked up from playing cards and shrugged; Yuffie twitched, asleep on the floor. Cid had went back upstairs earlier.
"How was the play?" the cowboy asked, tipping his hat the girls. At that moment, Cloud also walked in, holding a program.
"It gets better every time I see it," Aerith swooned.
Rinoa nodded, "You should had went, Irvy! It was awesome! When we see Squall again, we have to make him see this play!" Irvine faked a grin and turned his attention back to Vincent, rolling his eyes. The vampire snickered and the two went back to playing cards. "So, is everything alright? Sephiroth didn't pop up or anything did he?"
Both of the seated men shook their heads.
Vincent laid down a card, "Nothing happened, except some letter came for Cloud."
Cloud blinked, "That's odd. I didn't think anyone knew I lived here. Or that the mail was delivered at night..." He sat down on the couch next to Irvine. "Where is it?"
"On the table," the redhead replied as he placed a card on top of Vincent's.
The ex-SOLDIER turned his head toward Aerith, "Hey, could you bring it over here for me?"
"Why me?" the flower girl asked.
"Because, it would be rude to ask Granola to do it."
"Rinoa!" both girls cried.
"Whatever." Aerith sighed and stomped over to the table and grabbed the letter. She glanced down at it and snickered at the "TO CLOD" scrawled across the front then flicked the envelope at the blonde.
"There," she snorted as she flipped her hair and turned to march toward Rinoa.
"Thank you, Aerith," Cloud sang. "You know, that's why you're my favorite."
The flower girl paused and slowly turned around, "Really?" Cloud just smiled sweetly at her and proceeded to open the letter. Irvine chuckled at the obvious attempt at flirting and went back to his game.
"AAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" Cloud suddenly screamed and jumped up, dropping the letter to the ground. Everyone in the room became silent and turned their attention to the now panicking mercenary as he jumped on the couch as far away from the little piece of paper on the floor that he could get.
Irvine became wide eyed at the blonde then looked at the piece paper. It read: "MR. BUNNY-BUN IS GOING TO GET YOU". The cowboy then looked back up at Cloud, who was now sitting on the couch, his legs drawn to his chest rocking back and forth, babbling and crying.
"He's gonna get me, he's gonna get me, he's gonna get me, he's gonna get me. . ." the blonde sobbed repeatedly.
Irvine blinked.
