Fantasy Thunder Chapter Fifteen: Omicron
By Blue Dragon
Omicron. . . a fighter shrouded in mystery that has never even appeared more than twice.
"All 'qualified' fighters that participated in the Eta-Lambda incident proceed to the front door of Esthar garden immediately!"
That was the announcement that had been heard by everyone in garden. In minutes dozens of tired people poured their way out of the garden like antibodies to a virus, with the exception of a few. That morning would be an important turning point in the small war.
Facing garden were Lambda and Kappa, looking surprised at three traitors, backed by Oren, who was backed by quite a few insignificant others.
"It seems you're backed by quite a few insignificant others" Kappa claimed raising his hand casually.
Oren tapped Mu's shoulder, who turned to look at him as if he had to be somewhere else.
"Just what are you planning?"
"In due time" was his only reply.
Slowly the last few filed from garden to come in behind a small crowd through which nothing was visible.
Mu pulled three futuristic guns from unseen holsters, and handed one to Eta, the other to Theta.
"What do you plan on doing with that?" Lambda asked them.
In unison, the three held them to their heads, making Kappa raise an eyebrow.
"Gungrave Seppuku? You've gotta be kidding."
Oren was getting panicked.
"Hey! What are you doing? We need help here!"
Theta looked at him strictly.
"You and your fighters will be just fine. But I'm doing this for you. Not those scum!" he said, pointing to those behind him.
"And don't ask me what we have against them. If they need to be told, they truly are scum!"
". . . I will never understand Pyros or the people he trains"
Theta produced no response, and turned to face the gun he had pointed to himself.
In perfect synchronization, the three spun the guns and shot themselves directly in the head, making the whole crowd jump at the sudden gunshot.
Oren looked in horror as the three bodies with neat circles in their foreheads and lifeless, open eyes fell to the ground, and began to materialize in pillars of light.
Lambda smiled.
"They were too afraid to face us? Cowardly traitors." He turned to Kappa.
"I have to report this. Can you clean up the mess?"
"Not a prob--" Kappa didn't finish as Lambda blasted into the sky.
"Hmm. Well, you all are all that's left."
Everyone began to fan out around Kappa, hoping that their combined force would be enough.
Slowly, a smile spread across Oren's lips.
"That won't be necessary. Everyone, back inside. Cloud, Squall, Zidane and Tidus please remain."
The crowd wasn't hesitant to descend back to the garden until only the particular four were left.
"What are you doing? You think four would be able to handle me?"
"Uh. . . " Tidus put a hand on Oren's shoulder.
"What's up. You got a plan?"
"Oh. . . believe me. I don't NEED a plan. Everyone, put away your weapons"
Squall's jaw dropped to the ground.
"What?"
"I know what I'm doing."
Cloud was the last one to sheath his weapon.
"Good. Cloud, punch Kappa"
Cloud looked like he was going to have a heart attack.
"It would be the greatest of understatements to say that that was easier said than done" was his reply.
"Just try to hit him"
"I'm getting impatient over here! Do I have to kill you all?" Kappa yelled.
In a flash Cloud disappeared and his fist was driven straight into Kappa's abdomen.
Kappa coughed up blood and flew back onto the grass. From the look of things, it was impossible to tell who was more surprised, Kappa or Cloud. Cloud still held his fist, wide eyed.
"Did YOU do that?" Kappa asked shakily standing.
"Did I do that?" Cloud asked his trembling fist.
"Oh yes! See Kappa? Everyone on my side is probably at least five times more powerful! You're toast!" Oren danced like he had back at the end of the Alpha-Zeta incident.
"What are you dancing about Murasaki!? What happened?"
"You fool! Eta, Theta and Mu didn't kill themselves for nothing! Their power is ours! We all hold their power!"
Kappa stepped back.
"Y-you're lying!"
"Squall, you and Tidus get to the bridge, if you don't mind. In fourteen seconds"
The two looked at each other.
"How?" Tidus spoke up.
"Fly" Oren said simply.
"But how do we fly?"
"If you need to ask, you'll never be able to find out . . . its like asking me how to breathe"
Squall looked at his temporary partner and shrugged his shoulders. He closed his eyes and in a few seconds light wrapped them both up.
"Should we stop?" Tidus asked worriedly.
Squall didn't pay any attention as he blasted off into the noon sky leaving a rumble in his wake. Tidus followed and was alarmed.
"Woah!"
He grabbed on to the Caladbolg to keep it from falling as he felt himself increasing speed, looking at Squall above who seemed as if he were trying to stop rising up.
As suddenly as it had begun the two stopped directly over Esthar Garden, staring down at two holes in the area leading to the bridge from the top.
Squall clutched his heart.
"Great Hyne, I don't think I want to do that anymore." He said, putting his arms out as if to steady himself, more frightened than amazed at getting so high with minimum energy. He slowly descended into the crude holes over the bridge, Tidus shakily floating in after him.
***
Xu was now trembling in fear. Why had they left her alone?
"We'll make this easier on you, sister" Xi said in a fake comfort tone.
"Do you remember where you were before you were fourteen?"
"Of course . . . a little . . . not a lot . . . no. not at all."
Nu stood up.
"You see? Its because you were with us before then. Come, come back with us and we can give you a better life. We can take you away from the losing side of this meaningless battle and give you more than you ever desired."
Before Xu could give any response, Squall and Tidus dropped in from above with their weapons drawn.
"You only send two this time? Come Xi, sister will have to wait"
"Hey, don't just brush us off like that, you shouldn't be as arrogant as before, I'll tell you that!" Tidus for the first time found it hard to not break the hilt of the sword with his grip.
Smiles crossed the twin fighters' lips, and in a flash, their fists embedded themselves in the chests of Squall and Tidus.
Squall waited for the pain, but none came. Someone else was in pain, though.
"Dammit!" Xi and Nu screamed at the same time and retreated, clutching their bloody knuckles.
"What kind of steroids have you been taking!?" Nu asked in awe, pointing his good hand partially at Squall.
Squall just looked at Tidus.
"I don't think I'll need my gunblade for this. How about you?"
The blitzer's response was a sheathing of the Caladbolg.
Nu and Xi looked back at Xu.
"We'll see you later. Xi and I have to do a little recalibrating."
With that he blasted into the sky and didn't come back down.
***
Zidane stared at his fist, in as much awe as Cloud. Kappa had taken a solid blow to the head, not even looking alive.
"Don't worry, you didn't kill him" Oren said, walking over. "That was just a demonstration of the power you now have. Winning should be no problem now if we just stay together."
He put a hand on the unconscious Zatach, and sent him probably back to Pyros' ship with a flash of blue. He turned to face them.
"Well, now all we have to do is locate Pyros' ship and make him surrender or something. While I figure that out, you all just sit tight, chat, fight, run, exercise, eat, sleep, read, fly, practice, take pictures, finish homework, right a novel, give someone a hug, smile, hang, chill, play, swing, or any thing else that occupies you. I'm going to sit around in the conference room doing nothing . . . "
***
Quistis looked up at the ceiling and tsked.
"Squall, thanks to that hole in the ceiling, we won't be able to fly. It will be impossible to maintain pressure inside the bridge if we do."
Squall sighed.
"Then I guess we're going to have to figure out some other way to move. Xu, would you mind--"
He stopped when he saw Xu in her seat shaking.
"Are you alright?"
"I-I need to talk to Oren." She said before looking at Quistis.
"Could you come with me?"
Quistis had never seen Xu this shaken. Nothing had ever seemed to get her scared.
"Sure. What's the matter?"
"I'll tell you when we get there" she said, standing up. "But I need to see Oren first. I saw him going to the conference room through one of the cameras."
Quistis hesitantly followed her to the elevator and down the shaft with Squall looking at them and being intrigued the whole time.
***
Oren noticed that the conference room was empty. Just as he was sitting down to get a break, Reno, Rude, Elena, and Vincent burst in.
" . . . Can I help you?"
"Yeah" Rude said immediately.
"What now?"
"Look, I need you to get us back to our planet and. . . do you wash those clothes?"
". . . This is Zatach fabric, imported from the finest corners of the Uras region. All they need to do to repel dirt particles is stay within open oxygenated atoms and in turn they--"
"Yeah yeah, spare me the lecture."
You're the one that asked Oren thought.
"Look, can you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Get us back to our planet for Vincent's job!"
"Is this really that important? I'll have to go with you to get you back and--"
"Can't you just leave that Jessica girl to look over things, WE NEED THAT 1000 GIL!"
Oren stood up.
"Fine. Just let me concentrate."
Xu burst into the conference room and stormed down the long table to Oren.
". . . Can I help you?"
"I want to go to the Seraph orphanage!" she said immediately. "And take Quistis, too"
"I'm actually a bit busy"
Xu grabbed his arm.
"Please? Its very important to my past!"
Oren put a hand to his head.
"Okay, look. I'll take all of you at once, but we have to go to the Reno's destination first"
Xu nodded rapidly.
"Alright. But please hurry"
Oren concentrated to bring the group of seven including himself across space.
***
"So if you're from another planet, then how can you understand us?" Seifer asked Jessica as the two leaned on the railing.
"Special devices are installed into our heads at birth so that the thoughts and feelings of other species are translated into words we can understand, and vice versa. I actually hear you speaking ancient Zatach, but when I talk to you, you hear me speaking your own language."
"Why are do Cloud's eyes glow like that?"
"Don't ask me, I've been wondering that myself. Maybe we could ask him?"
"Or one of his friends"
Of course Seifer wasn't really interested, he was just trying to make conversation.
"You think I could arm wrestle you or something to see how much stronger I've gotten?"
In response Jessica pulled up her sleeve, making Seifer jump. The muscles, particularly biceps and triceps, were powerful-looking, and surprising to see on a female. They were bigger than Seifer's, in fact.
"Uh . . . "
"Come on, I spent five years of my life on a transport ship with nothing better to do than exercise"
"Right." Seifer put his elbow on the railing and the two clasped hands.
"You can start anytime" she said.
He tried pushing with all his might, and was surprised when her hand started to tremble.
"What. . . ?" she tried pushing back, but somehow Seifer found the strength to move her hand further and further down.
Once she was pinned on the invisible barrier on the other side of the railing, she examined her hand.
"Seifer, you must have been doing a load of training, because you're five times tougher than you were a few minutes ago"
"Weird. I must have trained harder than I thought." He said while looking at his own arm.
"Really. You know, I heard that this garden lost its ability to move due to a hole in the top. We may be stuck here, so is there anything you need to do?"
Fujin and Raijin back at Balamb popped into his head.
"Darn, I forgot about my friends that I left a while ago. They must be worried sick."
"You have friends back at Balamb?"
"Maybe you and I can go to meet them there. They must be worried sick. I'll bet Raijin is complaining. Probably something like 'I can't believe he left and never came back, ya know'"
***
"I can't believe he left and never came back, ya know!" Raijin yelled to the sky. He and Fujin were at the edge of Balamb at the city limits overlooking the Esthar Garden whose presence had been rumored. They had seen some people gather, a bunch leave, and then felt a wave of power. Fujin knew that Raijin had gotten over Seifer's indefinite absence, and that he was complaining out of anger of not understanding the events, not their leader's disappearance.
Of course the irresistible urge to kick him in the shins was hard to ignore, so she did just that.
"Ahh! Ouch!" Raijin jumped up and down clutching his bruised appendage. He couldn't remember how many times she had kicked him in a lifetime for he had lost count at 22,0977.
"It hurts! It burns! It stings! It aches! It smarts! It ouches! It pains, ya know!?"
"QUIET. COWARD" Fujin scolded. The two had been waiting at the city limits for anyone from garden to arrive, because it might be Seifer. And they were just that desperate. Raijin hadn't been crazy about the idea, of course.
After a few minutes had passed, two figures were visible on the horizon.
***
Zidane's Genome hearts began beating double as he approached the female dorm area. Before he had been interrupted by the announcement before he could go to her room, but now that was where he was headed.
No one was exactly guarding it, so Zidane went into the 'tornado'. He would certainly be embarrassed if he was caught 'snooping' there. In his mind, he considered the female dorm area, where he wasn't supposed to be, as a tornado. Dagger's room would be the eye, where he was safe.
A door right in front of him opened, and he scrambled behind it. Two girls came out with their backs to him. He quickly ran behind them, right in front of the open door. They said goodbye and one prepared to turn around.
In a panic, Zidane ran into the room and dove under the bed.
The female SeeD closed the door and locked it.
Zidane's hearts began beating quadruple. Now he was locked inside another girl's dorm room.
"Where's my knife?" she said to herself aloud.
Crap was the only word that came to Zidane's head. He looked to the right of him in the cramped space, where a long knife rimmed in silver lay.
From the crack under the bed, he could see her crouch down and reach under.
Zidane tried not to gasp as he squirmed quietly out of the way of a grasping hand, and inched the knife to where he was.
The hand, like an animal searching blindly for prey, grabbed the knife and pulled it from under.
She crouched again as if to look for something, and Zidane summoned up all his courage and scrambled out from the other side, and was then behind her. She stood and turned around, Zidane moving parallel with her back the whole time, and then moved to the door.
He started breathing again when she closed the door behind her, waited for the steps to fade away, and then ran out and towards Dagger's room, 666, trying to suppress the heart attack he thought he was having.
Without even knocking, he opened the door and closed it, flattening his back against it. Fortunately, his wife was decent and reading a book at the end of her bed.
"Hello Zidane" she said without looking up.
"I . . . thought . . . you . . . were . . . supposed . . . to . . . give . . . me . . . clearance . . . "
"Oh, I didn't expect you to come early. You didn't encounter any trouble, did you?"
"No, not at all . . ."
"Good. Zidane, I wanted to talk to you"
"About what?" Zidane asked, regaining his breath and sitting down in front of the door as if to bar anyone from coming inside and discovering him.
"When this ends, do we really want to return to Alexandria?"
***
Squall left the bridge and went back to his particularly big dorm room, where he sat down and tried to forget what happened the night before.
"No. I won't believe it. There's no way in hell that I'm in any way related to that clown. This has to be some kind of joke. Or mind game. Or maybe it just didn't happen. Yeah. I imagined it all"
Squall reverted to an old method of pretending that his problems didn't exist and lay on his back staring up at the ceiling. This bed was hundreds of times more comfortable than that rock of a mattress back at Balamb.
What did they do with those old gardens, anyway? He thought to himself.
Slowly, the thoughts led him to thinking again about his official duties as commander.
"Well, we have to orient the town with some SeeDs, but Balamb is still two miles away" he said to himself.
"What am I saying? We have jets! Then again, that would be a bit of an overkill . . . helicopters"
Squall's head went back to the helicopter selection in the hangar. There were KA-50 Hokums, KA-60 Kasatka's, MI-24 Hinds, CH-47 Chinooks, AK-74s, and AK-64s. Not to mention a selection of classic Blackhawks. They could just fly in and tell the town what they were doing, simple garden procedure.
I don't feel like going through all that. Maybe I should just cancel . . . or go there personally Squall thought again to himself. At first he thought that they were pure, untainted thoughts, and then remembered that he hated orientations and would never go himself unless he absolutely had to. When the real reason he wanted to leave for a while occurred to him, he sat up.
I'm not going to spend my life running. I'm talking to Laguna.
He stood up and headed out the doorway.
***
Sephiroth blinked at Rikku who had just come from wherever, wondering why she could still be interested in trying to hold his sword.
"Are you sure? You realized that last time you couldn't move it?"
"Come on! Maybe trying to lift it makes me stronger?"
"Fine, fine, but don't expect any luck"
He pulled out the Masamune and set it on the smooth floor in the sidelines of the fifth floor hallway. Rikku rubbed her hands together and clasped them both around the handle. Then, to Sephiroth's absolute surprise, she lifted it effortlessly.
"But how! Impossible!"
"I lifted it!" she praised herself by flipping the sword, twirling it, and swinging a few safe swings.
"Unbelievable!" for the first time in his life Sephiroth's jaw dropped.
"It was a short time ago that you couldn't even move it! And now you find it inside you to even swing it? What's your secret?"
She gave the sword back to the owner and shrugged her shoulders.
"I just tried the same way I did before . . . did you find who you were looking for, by the way?"
Sephiroth momentarily disregarded his awe and looked down thoughtfully.
"Unfortunately no. I'm starting to think that Oren was lying about Jessica being around"
"That's who you were looking for? She's around, all right. I saw her myself"
"You did? Well that's a relief. In that case, I would prefer being with you . . . " the words just came out as if he had no control.
Am I going soft? He thought.
Rikku smiled at him.
"I think you're going soft!"
Dammit! He nearly thought aloud.
***
In the tropical branch of Esthar Garden, Kimahri silently followed Freya to finish the fight that they had started a day ago.
"I think this was the spot" she said, stopping by the waterfall where they had been dueling before.
The Ronso's answer was a switch to battle stance with his knees bent and the point of the lance held a few feet in front of his head.
Freya already knew that none of her previous tactics would work, so she went straight for the special techniques. She concentrated on one of her newest techniques that she had been hoping to use before, the kamikaze air- razor.
With only the back of her feet, she launched herself backwards into the air, careful not to hit the quickly approaching ceiling, and then plummeted back down.
Kimahri expected an easy evasion, but began to panic when the Freya disappeared right in front of him.
The Ronso twirled around out of pure instinct and slashed blindly upward.
In a move of pure luck, the lance clashed with Freya's and it flew out of her hand.
Before Kimahri could take advantage, however, Freya delivered a sidekick to Kimahri's side that sent the lance spinning out of his hand.
With quick timing Kimahri extended his claws and began to go into a hand-to- hand fight before Freya put a hand out to stop him.
"Remember, our agreement set on the rule that the disarmament of the opponent registers as a ground for victory. That would make it a tie."
"Kimahri must say, you're very good"
He saw no indication of her expression under her red hat, but Freya was smiling underneath it.
"You are the only one I've ever fought who could defeat me lance-to-lance. Not even Fratley can defeat me anymore."
Before Kimahri made a move for his lance, he heard Seymour talking in the background while Freya listened to Kuja. The two slunk over to the bushes and looked through to see the two sitting on a rock arguing about something.
***
"Yevon? That's nothing. I was fought by four people at once, fell five hundred feet, landed on a hard surface, and still made it out of an Iifa tree alive!"
"I slaughtered dozens of Ronso warriors in twelve minutes!"
"I wiped out half the population of Gaia!"
"I provided excellent support in the fall of Sinspawn Gui without even lifting a finger!"
"I could cast an Ultima spell at age three."
"I could cast an Ultima spell at two and a half!"
"I listened to a boy band sing for three hours, and only sent three of them to the infirmary!"
"When Jimmy cracked corn, I didn't even care!"
Kuja stepped back.
"My goodness, I can't beat that."
Seymour nodded his head triumphantly.
"You certainly can't. It is truly a feat to not care about a small boy that cracks corn."
"Even so, I could probably defeat you in a one-on-one fight"
"You think so?" Seymour launched himself back twenty feet in front of a gigantic palm tree and pushed himself to his second most powerful form, Flux.
Crystal wings thrust themselves behind him and a Mortichoris floated around his head. Alloy plates covered his whole body and made him look much bigger as he floated in the air.
Kuja yawned.
"Big guns don't mean a thing. Its all in the power."
He contradicted his statement when his fur turned red and his tail stuck straight out. His Trance mode enabled him to float a good eight feet.
Any SeeD within the area retreated. No one wanted to be around when the storm hit.
***
Oren appeared in Nibelheim, where nothing seemed out of place.
He turned around and looked to the group behind him.
"If you have anything to do, then do it. I can't stay here for long."
Reno, Rude and Elena immediately followed Vincent to the mansion where they would investigate whatever strange happenings had been concerning them.
Xu and Quistis retreated the other way to what looked like an inn.
The Shinra employees had decided it was pointless to keep up their charade, and left, leaving the place a ghost town. Then people that had actually lived their flooded the town.
The innkeeper had been reading a magazine, but when he saw he had customers he looked up momentarily to hand Xu a key and she paid the necessary gil. The two walked up the stairs and to the left into the old fashioned room.
"Do you think that they're behind in technology? This place doesn't seem much different from our planet fifty years ago" Quistis commented.
"From what I've heard, some of these planets have technological development spread across the globe. We can't really talk, when you compare Esthar and Winhill" Xu answered.
"I suppose your right" Quistis said, sitting down on one of the beds overlooking the window.
Xu sat down on one opposite of Quistis.
"So tell me, Xu. What are you trying to investigate exactly?"
Xu looked down and sighed.
"Well, it started when I was fourteen and wandered onto an orphanage . . . "
________________________________________________________________________
AN: Another down. I'm 5/8 into the fic now. Well, I now have 30+ reviews! Keep 'em coming, cause good reviews make a happy author. And happiness is a great repellent for writer's block!
By Blue Dragon
Omicron. . . a fighter shrouded in mystery that has never even appeared more than twice.
"All 'qualified' fighters that participated in the Eta-Lambda incident proceed to the front door of Esthar garden immediately!"
That was the announcement that had been heard by everyone in garden. In minutes dozens of tired people poured their way out of the garden like antibodies to a virus, with the exception of a few. That morning would be an important turning point in the small war.
Facing garden were Lambda and Kappa, looking surprised at three traitors, backed by Oren, who was backed by quite a few insignificant others.
"It seems you're backed by quite a few insignificant others" Kappa claimed raising his hand casually.
Oren tapped Mu's shoulder, who turned to look at him as if he had to be somewhere else.
"Just what are you planning?"
"In due time" was his only reply.
Slowly the last few filed from garden to come in behind a small crowd through which nothing was visible.
Mu pulled three futuristic guns from unseen holsters, and handed one to Eta, the other to Theta.
"What do you plan on doing with that?" Lambda asked them.
In unison, the three held them to their heads, making Kappa raise an eyebrow.
"Gungrave Seppuku? You've gotta be kidding."
Oren was getting panicked.
"Hey! What are you doing? We need help here!"
Theta looked at him strictly.
"You and your fighters will be just fine. But I'm doing this for you. Not those scum!" he said, pointing to those behind him.
"And don't ask me what we have against them. If they need to be told, they truly are scum!"
". . . I will never understand Pyros or the people he trains"
Theta produced no response, and turned to face the gun he had pointed to himself.
In perfect synchronization, the three spun the guns and shot themselves directly in the head, making the whole crowd jump at the sudden gunshot.
Oren looked in horror as the three bodies with neat circles in their foreheads and lifeless, open eyes fell to the ground, and began to materialize in pillars of light.
Lambda smiled.
"They were too afraid to face us? Cowardly traitors." He turned to Kappa.
"I have to report this. Can you clean up the mess?"
"Not a prob--" Kappa didn't finish as Lambda blasted into the sky.
"Hmm. Well, you all are all that's left."
Everyone began to fan out around Kappa, hoping that their combined force would be enough.
Slowly, a smile spread across Oren's lips.
"That won't be necessary. Everyone, back inside. Cloud, Squall, Zidane and Tidus please remain."
The crowd wasn't hesitant to descend back to the garden until only the particular four were left.
"What are you doing? You think four would be able to handle me?"
"Uh. . . " Tidus put a hand on Oren's shoulder.
"What's up. You got a plan?"
"Oh. . . believe me. I don't NEED a plan. Everyone, put away your weapons"
Squall's jaw dropped to the ground.
"What?"
"I know what I'm doing."
Cloud was the last one to sheath his weapon.
"Good. Cloud, punch Kappa"
Cloud looked like he was going to have a heart attack.
"It would be the greatest of understatements to say that that was easier said than done" was his reply.
"Just try to hit him"
"I'm getting impatient over here! Do I have to kill you all?" Kappa yelled.
In a flash Cloud disappeared and his fist was driven straight into Kappa's abdomen.
Kappa coughed up blood and flew back onto the grass. From the look of things, it was impossible to tell who was more surprised, Kappa or Cloud. Cloud still held his fist, wide eyed.
"Did YOU do that?" Kappa asked shakily standing.
"Did I do that?" Cloud asked his trembling fist.
"Oh yes! See Kappa? Everyone on my side is probably at least five times more powerful! You're toast!" Oren danced like he had back at the end of the Alpha-Zeta incident.
"What are you dancing about Murasaki!? What happened?"
"You fool! Eta, Theta and Mu didn't kill themselves for nothing! Their power is ours! We all hold their power!"
Kappa stepped back.
"Y-you're lying!"
"Squall, you and Tidus get to the bridge, if you don't mind. In fourteen seconds"
The two looked at each other.
"How?" Tidus spoke up.
"Fly" Oren said simply.
"But how do we fly?"
"If you need to ask, you'll never be able to find out . . . its like asking me how to breathe"
Squall looked at his temporary partner and shrugged his shoulders. He closed his eyes and in a few seconds light wrapped them both up.
"Should we stop?" Tidus asked worriedly.
Squall didn't pay any attention as he blasted off into the noon sky leaving a rumble in his wake. Tidus followed and was alarmed.
"Woah!"
He grabbed on to the Caladbolg to keep it from falling as he felt himself increasing speed, looking at Squall above who seemed as if he were trying to stop rising up.
As suddenly as it had begun the two stopped directly over Esthar Garden, staring down at two holes in the area leading to the bridge from the top.
Squall clutched his heart.
"Great Hyne, I don't think I want to do that anymore." He said, putting his arms out as if to steady himself, more frightened than amazed at getting so high with minimum energy. He slowly descended into the crude holes over the bridge, Tidus shakily floating in after him.
***
Xu was now trembling in fear. Why had they left her alone?
"We'll make this easier on you, sister" Xi said in a fake comfort tone.
"Do you remember where you were before you were fourteen?"
"Of course . . . a little . . . not a lot . . . no. not at all."
Nu stood up.
"You see? Its because you were with us before then. Come, come back with us and we can give you a better life. We can take you away from the losing side of this meaningless battle and give you more than you ever desired."
Before Xu could give any response, Squall and Tidus dropped in from above with their weapons drawn.
"You only send two this time? Come Xi, sister will have to wait"
"Hey, don't just brush us off like that, you shouldn't be as arrogant as before, I'll tell you that!" Tidus for the first time found it hard to not break the hilt of the sword with his grip.
Smiles crossed the twin fighters' lips, and in a flash, their fists embedded themselves in the chests of Squall and Tidus.
Squall waited for the pain, but none came. Someone else was in pain, though.
"Dammit!" Xi and Nu screamed at the same time and retreated, clutching their bloody knuckles.
"What kind of steroids have you been taking!?" Nu asked in awe, pointing his good hand partially at Squall.
Squall just looked at Tidus.
"I don't think I'll need my gunblade for this. How about you?"
The blitzer's response was a sheathing of the Caladbolg.
Nu and Xi looked back at Xu.
"We'll see you later. Xi and I have to do a little recalibrating."
With that he blasted into the sky and didn't come back down.
***
Zidane stared at his fist, in as much awe as Cloud. Kappa had taken a solid blow to the head, not even looking alive.
"Don't worry, you didn't kill him" Oren said, walking over. "That was just a demonstration of the power you now have. Winning should be no problem now if we just stay together."
He put a hand on the unconscious Zatach, and sent him probably back to Pyros' ship with a flash of blue. He turned to face them.
"Well, now all we have to do is locate Pyros' ship and make him surrender or something. While I figure that out, you all just sit tight, chat, fight, run, exercise, eat, sleep, read, fly, practice, take pictures, finish homework, right a novel, give someone a hug, smile, hang, chill, play, swing, or any thing else that occupies you. I'm going to sit around in the conference room doing nothing . . . "
***
Quistis looked up at the ceiling and tsked.
"Squall, thanks to that hole in the ceiling, we won't be able to fly. It will be impossible to maintain pressure inside the bridge if we do."
Squall sighed.
"Then I guess we're going to have to figure out some other way to move. Xu, would you mind--"
He stopped when he saw Xu in her seat shaking.
"Are you alright?"
"I-I need to talk to Oren." She said before looking at Quistis.
"Could you come with me?"
Quistis had never seen Xu this shaken. Nothing had ever seemed to get her scared.
"Sure. What's the matter?"
"I'll tell you when we get there" she said, standing up. "But I need to see Oren first. I saw him going to the conference room through one of the cameras."
Quistis hesitantly followed her to the elevator and down the shaft with Squall looking at them and being intrigued the whole time.
***
Oren noticed that the conference room was empty. Just as he was sitting down to get a break, Reno, Rude, Elena, and Vincent burst in.
" . . . Can I help you?"
"Yeah" Rude said immediately.
"What now?"
"Look, I need you to get us back to our planet and. . . do you wash those clothes?"
". . . This is Zatach fabric, imported from the finest corners of the Uras region. All they need to do to repel dirt particles is stay within open oxygenated atoms and in turn they--"
"Yeah yeah, spare me the lecture."
You're the one that asked Oren thought.
"Look, can you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Get us back to our planet for Vincent's job!"
"Is this really that important? I'll have to go with you to get you back and--"
"Can't you just leave that Jessica girl to look over things, WE NEED THAT 1000 GIL!"
Oren stood up.
"Fine. Just let me concentrate."
Xu burst into the conference room and stormed down the long table to Oren.
". . . Can I help you?"
"I want to go to the Seraph orphanage!" she said immediately. "And take Quistis, too"
"I'm actually a bit busy"
Xu grabbed his arm.
"Please? Its very important to my past!"
Oren put a hand to his head.
"Okay, look. I'll take all of you at once, but we have to go to the Reno's destination first"
Xu nodded rapidly.
"Alright. But please hurry"
Oren concentrated to bring the group of seven including himself across space.
***
"So if you're from another planet, then how can you understand us?" Seifer asked Jessica as the two leaned on the railing.
"Special devices are installed into our heads at birth so that the thoughts and feelings of other species are translated into words we can understand, and vice versa. I actually hear you speaking ancient Zatach, but when I talk to you, you hear me speaking your own language."
"Why are do Cloud's eyes glow like that?"
"Don't ask me, I've been wondering that myself. Maybe we could ask him?"
"Or one of his friends"
Of course Seifer wasn't really interested, he was just trying to make conversation.
"You think I could arm wrestle you or something to see how much stronger I've gotten?"
In response Jessica pulled up her sleeve, making Seifer jump. The muscles, particularly biceps and triceps, were powerful-looking, and surprising to see on a female. They were bigger than Seifer's, in fact.
"Uh . . . "
"Come on, I spent five years of my life on a transport ship with nothing better to do than exercise"
"Right." Seifer put his elbow on the railing and the two clasped hands.
"You can start anytime" she said.
He tried pushing with all his might, and was surprised when her hand started to tremble.
"What. . . ?" she tried pushing back, but somehow Seifer found the strength to move her hand further and further down.
Once she was pinned on the invisible barrier on the other side of the railing, she examined her hand.
"Seifer, you must have been doing a load of training, because you're five times tougher than you were a few minutes ago"
"Weird. I must have trained harder than I thought." He said while looking at his own arm.
"Really. You know, I heard that this garden lost its ability to move due to a hole in the top. We may be stuck here, so is there anything you need to do?"
Fujin and Raijin back at Balamb popped into his head.
"Darn, I forgot about my friends that I left a while ago. They must be worried sick."
"You have friends back at Balamb?"
"Maybe you and I can go to meet them there. They must be worried sick. I'll bet Raijin is complaining. Probably something like 'I can't believe he left and never came back, ya know'"
***
"I can't believe he left and never came back, ya know!" Raijin yelled to the sky. He and Fujin were at the edge of Balamb at the city limits overlooking the Esthar Garden whose presence had been rumored. They had seen some people gather, a bunch leave, and then felt a wave of power. Fujin knew that Raijin had gotten over Seifer's indefinite absence, and that he was complaining out of anger of not understanding the events, not their leader's disappearance.
Of course the irresistible urge to kick him in the shins was hard to ignore, so she did just that.
"Ahh! Ouch!" Raijin jumped up and down clutching his bruised appendage. He couldn't remember how many times she had kicked him in a lifetime for he had lost count at 22,0977.
"It hurts! It burns! It stings! It aches! It smarts! It ouches! It pains, ya know!?"
"QUIET. COWARD" Fujin scolded. The two had been waiting at the city limits for anyone from garden to arrive, because it might be Seifer. And they were just that desperate. Raijin hadn't been crazy about the idea, of course.
After a few minutes had passed, two figures were visible on the horizon.
***
Zidane's Genome hearts began beating double as he approached the female dorm area. Before he had been interrupted by the announcement before he could go to her room, but now that was where he was headed.
No one was exactly guarding it, so Zidane went into the 'tornado'. He would certainly be embarrassed if he was caught 'snooping' there. In his mind, he considered the female dorm area, where he wasn't supposed to be, as a tornado. Dagger's room would be the eye, where he was safe.
A door right in front of him opened, and he scrambled behind it. Two girls came out with their backs to him. He quickly ran behind them, right in front of the open door. They said goodbye and one prepared to turn around.
In a panic, Zidane ran into the room and dove under the bed.
The female SeeD closed the door and locked it.
Zidane's hearts began beating quadruple. Now he was locked inside another girl's dorm room.
"Where's my knife?" she said to herself aloud.
Crap was the only word that came to Zidane's head. He looked to the right of him in the cramped space, where a long knife rimmed in silver lay.
From the crack under the bed, he could see her crouch down and reach under.
Zidane tried not to gasp as he squirmed quietly out of the way of a grasping hand, and inched the knife to where he was.
The hand, like an animal searching blindly for prey, grabbed the knife and pulled it from under.
She crouched again as if to look for something, and Zidane summoned up all his courage and scrambled out from the other side, and was then behind her. She stood and turned around, Zidane moving parallel with her back the whole time, and then moved to the door.
He started breathing again when she closed the door behind her, waited for the steps to fade away, and then ran out and towards Dagger's room, 666, trying to suppress the heart attack he thought he was having.
Without even knocking, he opened the door and closed it, flattening his back against it. Fortunately, his wife was decent and reading a book at the end of her bed.
"Hello Zidane" she said without looking up.
"I . . . thought . . . you . . . were . . . supposed . . . to . . . give . . . me . . . clearance . . . "
"Oh, I didn't expect you to come early. You didn't encounter any trouble, did you?"
"No, not at all . . ."
"Good. Zidane, I wanted to talk to you"
"About what?" Zidane asked, regaining his breath and sitting down in front of the door as if to bar anyone from coming inside and discovering him.
"When this ends, do we really want to return to Alexandria?"
***
Squall left the bridge and went back to his particularly big dorm room, where he sat down and tried to forget what happened the night before.
"No. I won't believe it. There's no way in hell that I'm in any way related to that clown. This has to be some kind of joke. Or mind game. Or maybe it just didn't happen. Yeah. I imagined it all"
Squall reverted to an old method of pretending that his problems didn't exist and lay on his back staring up at the ceiling. This bed was hundreds of times more comfortable than that rock of a mattress back at Balamb.
What did they do with those old gardens, anyway? He thought to himself.
Slowly, the thoughts led him to thinking again about his official duties as commander.
"Well, we have to orient the town with some SeeDs, but Balamb is still two miles away" he said to himself.
"What am I saying? We have jets! Then again, that would be a bit of an overkill . . . helicopters"
Squall's head went back to the helicopter selection in the hangar. There were KA-50 Hokums, KA-60 Kasatka's, MI-24 Hinds, CH-47 Chinooks, AK-74s, and AK-64s. Not to mention a selection of classic Blackhawks. They could just fly in and tell the town what they were doing, simple garden procedure.
I don't feel like going through all that. Maybe I should just cancel . . . or go there personally Squall thought again to himself. At first he thought that they were pure, untainted thoughts, and then remembered that he hated orientations and would never go himself unless he absolutely had to. When the real reason he wanted to leave for a while occurred to him, he sat up.
I'm not going to spend my life running. I'm talking to Laguna.
He stood up and headed out the doorway.
***
Sephiroth blinked at Rikku who had just come from wherever, wondering why she could still be interested in trying to hold his sword.
"Are you sure? You realized that last time you couldn't move it?"
"Come on! Maybe trying to lift it makes me stronger?"
"Fine, fine, but don't expect any luck"
He pulled out the Masamune and set it on the smooth floor in the sidelines of the fifth floor hallway. Rikku rubbed her hands together and clasped them both around the handle. Then, to Sephiroth's absolute surprise, she lifted it effortlessly.
"But how! Impossible!"
"I lifted it!" she praised herself by flipping the sword, twirling it, and swinging a few safe swings.
"Unbelievable!" for the first time in his life Sephiroth's jaw dropped.
"It was a short time ago that you couldn't even move it! And now you find it inside you to even swing it? What's your secret?"
She gave the sword back to the owner and shrugged her shoulders.
"I just tried the same way I did before . . . did you find who you were looking for, by the way?"
Sephiroth momentarily disregarded his awe and looked down thoughtfully.
"Unfortunately no. I'm starting to think that Oren was lying about Jessica being around"
"That's who you were looking for? She's around, all right. I saw her myself"
"You did? Well that's a relief. In that case, I would prefer being with you . . . " the words just came out as if he had no control.
Am I going soft? He thought.
Rikku smiled at him.
"I think you're going soft!"
Dammit! He nearly thought aloud.
***
In the tropical branch of Esthar Garden, Kimahri silently followed Freya to finish the fight that they had started a day ago.
"I think this was the spot" she said, stopping by the waterfall where they had been dueling before.
The Ronso's answer was a switch to battle stance with his knees bent and the point of the lance held a few feet in front of his head.
Freya already knew that none of her previous tactics would work, so she went straight for the special techniques. She concentrated on one of her newest techniques that she had been hoping to use before, the kamikaze air- razor.
With only the back of her feet, she launched herself backwards into the air, careful not to hit the quickly approaching ceiling, and then plummeted back down.
Kimahri expected an easy evasion, but began to panic when the Freya disappeared right in front of him.
The Ronso twirled around out of pure instinct and slashed blindly upward.
In a move of pure luck, the lance clashed with Freya's and it flew out of her hand.
Before Kimahri could take advantage, however, Freya delivered a sidekick to Kimahri's side that sent the lance spinning out of his hand.
With quick timing Kimahri extended his claws and began to go into a hand-to- hand fight before Freya put a hand out to stop him.
"Remember, our agreement set on the rule that the disarmament of the opponent registers as a ground for victory. That would make it a tie."
"Kimahri must say, you're very good"
He saw no indication of her expression under her red hat, but Freya was smiling underneath it.
"You are the only one I've ever fought who could defeat me lance-to-lance. Not even Fratley can defeat me anymore."
Before Kimahri made a move for his lance, he heard Seymour talking in the background while Freya listened to Kuja. The two slunk over to the bushes and looked through to see the two sitting on a rock arguing about something.
***
"Yevon? That's nothing. I was fought by four people at once, fell five hundred feet, landed on a hard surface, and still made it out of an Iifa tree alive!"
"I slaughtered dozens of Ronso warriors in twelve minutes!"
"I wiped out half the population of Gaia!"
"I provided excellent support in the fall of Sinspawn Gui without even lifting a finger!"
"I could cast an Ultima spell at age three."
"I could cast an Ultima spell at two and a half!"
"I listened to a boy band sing for three hours, and only sent three of them to the infirmary!"
"When Jimmy cracked corn, I didn't even care!"
Kuja stepped back.
"My goodness, I can't beat that."
Seymour nodded his head triumphantly.
"You certainly can't. It is truly a feat to not care about a small boy that cracks corn."
"Even so, I could probably defeat you in a one-on-one fight"
"You think so?" Seymour launched himself back twenty feet in front of a gigantic palm tree and pushed himself to his second most powerful form, Flux.
Crystal wings thrust themselves behind him and a Mortichoris floated around his head. Alloy plates covered his whole body and made him look much bigger as he floated in the air.
Kuja yawned.
"Big guns don't mean a thing. Its all in the power."
He contradicted his statement when his fur turned red and his tail stuck straight out. His Trance mode enabled him to float a good eight feet.
Any SeeD within the area retreated. No one wanted to be around when the storm hit.
***
Oren appeared in Nibelheim, where nothing seemed out of place.
He turned around and looked to the group behind him.
"If you have anything to do, then do it. I can't stay here for long."
Reno, Rude and Elena immediately followed Vincent to the mansion where they would investigate whatever strange happenings had been concerning them.
Xu and Quistis retreated the other way to what looked like an inn.
The Shinra employees had decided it was pointless to keep up their charade, and left, leaving the place a ghost town. Then people that had actually lived their flooded the town.
The innkeeper had been reading a magazine, but when he saw he had customers he looked up momentarily to hand Xu a key and she paid the necessary gil. The two walked up the stairs and to the left into the old fashioned room.
"Do you think that they're behind in technology? This place doesn't seem much different from our planet fifty years ago" Quistis commented.
"From what I've heard, some of these planets have technological development spread across the globe. We can't really talk, when you compare Esthar and Winhill" Xu answered.
"I suppose your right" Quistis said, sitting down on one of the beds overlooking the window.
Xu sat down on one opposite of Quistis.
"So tell me, Xu. What are you trying to investigate exactly?"
Xu looked down and sighed.
"Well, it started when I was fourteen and wandered onto an orphanage . . . "
________________________________________________________________________
AN: Another down. I'm 5/8 into the fic now. Well, I now have 30+ reviews! Keep 'em coming, cause good reviews make a happy author. And happiness is a great repellent for writer's block!