Chapter VI: Final Preperations
Jarred was bouncing up and down in the buggy passenger seats, eager to reach Midgar. When it came down to sugar, Jarred really DID turn into a child, and was liable to wage holy war if he thought someone was going to take it away from him. The young man could barely contain himself, nor could Joan, who was bouncing in place along with Jarred.

"Are we there yet?" Jarred asked, a hopeful look stamped clearly on his face.

Cloud sighed. That must have been the fifteenth time Jarred had asked, and Cloud was beginning to wish he could shoot himself. Unfortunately, the immediate lack of anything to shoot himself with prevented him from doing so. For the moment he settled with biting his tongue.

"No. Jarred. We. Are. Not. There. Yet." He said with extremely strained patience.

Joan poked her head between the front seats, to look at Tifa and Cloud.

"Your hoomans, right? Daddy said so." She said it sweetly, you might have mistaken her for asking why the sky was blue, not what your race was.

Tifa turned and smiled at the little girl.

"Of course we are, sweetie. What else would we be?" She answered, secretively tossing a questioning glance at Joans 'daddy'. Jarred nervously stopped bouncing around, and found the scenery outside suddenly very interesting.

"Oh look, Joan, a herd of chocobos!" He said, and pulled Joan away. "Hey, look! A red one!" Jarred said distractingly.

Joan immediately set about looking for an apparently non-existent red chocobo. Jarred wrapped an arm around her so that she couldn't squirm away in a hurry. He turned to smile good naturedly at Cloud and Tifa.

Tifa had raised an eyebrow at Jarred, but Cloud was a little preoccupied with driving to make any signs of surprise.

"I can't wait to get this over with." The hero murmured as the spire of the ShinRa headquarters came into sight.

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Nox Seran was tired. Very tired. This the shadowlord could see in his crystal ball.

So would you if you tried to swim across an ocean after a few thousand years of nothingness.

The snake demon now had land within sight, however, and spurred himself on. Surely a demon could span beyond physical distances!

It became painfully clear that even a demon couldn't as the Nox Seran found that his will was forcing his limbs to work, but to no avail. He was too tired.

Nox Seran began a slow, steady sink into the blue depths of the see. But then again, what would any self respecting demon be if he didn't know how to get out of just about every situation?

Nox Seran hastily began casting a water breathing spell even as his head began to be enclosed by water. At the last incantation the demon lifted his hands and waited for his spell to take effect. To his great shock, there was a whole of nothing.

He began a panicked ascent to the surface, trying frantically to reach the surface before his body realized that it WASN'T a fish, and rudely demanded some air.

Of course, it wouldn't really fit into the Shadowlord's scheme of things if his warrior was drowned before he could fulfil his purpose, so he asked a special friend to help.

"So, who's gonna take the pleasure of gloating over this when Nox Seran comes back?" The shadow lord asked, with a wry smile.

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A massive hand closed around the struggling body of Nox Seran. The demons felt himself being pushed upwards in a frightening speed. As his head burst through the surface of the water, it became painfully clear that certain people were watching him. People he would prefer to be rotting in hell at the moment. Rotting, burning, and getting great big, scary implements of pain shoved into them.

"LET GO OF ME YOU PAWN OF THE PLANET!" Nox Seran roared at the hand of WEAPON.

Below him Nox Seran could barely see the massive eyes of WEAPON looking at him curiously through the murky depths of water.

"YOU HEARD ME YOU STUPID BEAST! LET GO!" The demon ranted. It was just shameful to receive help from something that the Cetra had at one point rvered.

WEAPON certainly did let go. Eventually. Where the letting go part comes in is where WEAPON threw Nox Seran in the general direction of Midgar.

The snake demon began a rapid rate of cursing that would have made Cid ashamed of himself. Air rushed by as the demon was hurled cruelly through it. Once again, however, he was not without a 'spell'.

He began mumbling in the tongue of demons, and an eerie glow surrounded him. As he finished the spell the glow increased, and Nox Seran felt his strength return. Now he could begin a spell for making the world below him to stop moving so fast.

But first that big, metal airship would have to get out of the way.

"Oh crap!" Nox Seran cursed, as it began to look like once again, he was going to be on the bad side of pain and suffering.

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Vincent jumped at the great, resounding 'WHUMP' that echoed around the Highwind, followed shortly by what sounded like someone cursing most foully in a foreign language. Vincent assumed that Cid had done something VERY wrong, and was now making the fact perfectly clear.

These thoughts were immediately dispelled as Cid himself ran out of the control room and into the hold, with a somewhat panicked look on his face.

"What the #ยค%& was that?!" He shouted, looking at the everywhere for some sign of damage.

Vincent jumped to his feet, momentarily leaving Yuffie to moan and suffer for a minute.

"What happened?" Vincent asked calmly, approaching Cid.

The old pilot flashed Vincent an urgent look.

"I think we hit something." He said quickly, and resumed inspecting the hold.

Vincent regarded Cid with an odd look.

"Hit something? Cid, we're not talking about a dog, are we? Because they tend to stay on the ground for some reason." Vincent remarked.

Cid glared at Vincent.

"Ha ha. Very funny. Just for that you get to check the deck." Cid grumbled, and began climbing down a ladder that led to the engine room. Before Vincent could argue Cid was out of hearing range.

Vincent went down by Yuffie, and rubbed her shoulder.

"I'm gonna check outside, so just take it easy, 'kay?" He said softly.

Yuffie nodded weakly, and pushed herself against a box. Vincent gave her a sympathetic glance and walked up the stairs that led to the deck.

Just as he opened the door he was met by a lively stream of curses and swearing. But the strangest thing was that it was completely in demonic, so Vincent couldn't understand a word of it. The only way he could tell that the speaker was swearing was by the way each word was emphasized with special anger.

"Hello?" Vincent called out, spreading his black wings.

The cursing immediately stopped. Vincent leapt into the air, and flapped his wings quickly to gain altitude.

"Who's up there?" Vincent demanded, putting his claw against the side of the Highwind for stability. HE KNEW he had heard that voice somewhere before, but sure from WHERE.

"Valentine? Are you there, Valentine?" The voice asked, in a somewhat hopeful tone. Vincent once again knew he had heard that voice somewhere.

"Who's up there?" He asked again, making his way further up.

From a above him there was a sound like something slithering across thin steel, and soon a head poked over the top of the Highwind.

"It IS the Valentine!" Whoever it was on top of the Highwind said happily, and eagerly reached down to grab Vincent.

Vincent gave his hand to grab, and was pulled roughly upwards as the person dragged him on top of the Highwind.

"Nox Seran?" He said in disbelief.

The snake demon looked like he was going to burst from happiness.

"Oooooh, the Valentine remembers me! Now we're going to have SO much fun!" The demon said manically, and laughed.

Vincent found himself laughing with the demon, for some odd reason. Insane laughter had that effect on people, you just had to laugh along. Especially when the person laughing whips out a paper hat and ties it on his head.

"What are YOU doing here Valentine? You have your OWN wings! You have no need for such atrocities!" Nox Seran said between giggles, and wrapped an arm around Vincent good naturedly.

"Well, I have a certain wife who can't fly on her own, so I had to go along in this heap of metal to get to Midgar."

Nox Seran cocked his head to one side.

"Midgar? The big evil place? It has a NAME?" The demon said.

Vincent shrugged.

"Sure. But anyway, how did you get back here? I thought The Council had to stay in the demon realm for some reason."

"Honor." Nox Seran added quickly.

"Whatever." Vincent said. "What are you doing here?"

Nox Seran twisted around so that his torso was pointing skywards, and his head was upside down.

"It's a long story, and I don't think I can tell you. But if your going to the big evil place, could you take me with you? Considering how I'm already here, that is."

Vincent gave this some thought.

"Hmm, well, I might have to do a fair amount of convincing, but when they see you as for the person you really are, and after they stop laughing, I'm sure they'll let you hitch a ride."

Nox Seran smiled like a cat with a mouse.

"I knew I could count on you, Valentine."

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Seph X was trying to rent a boat, but was having some serious problems. For one, he didn't have nearly enough to rent one. Secondly, the people who were running the boat wanted to see exactly who they were dealing with.

"What are you trying to hide, eh?" The captain demanded.

Seph X shifted nervously.

"Nothing. I'd just prefer to be anonymous until I get to Midgar."

The captain regarded Seph X with obvious distrust.

"You aren't one of those Sephiroth clones, out to get revenge against Strife, are you?"

Something told him that things weren't working like they should.

"No, I am not out for revenge." The mechanic clone assured.

The captain looked him up and down.

"Are you a clone."

Seph X shrugged.

"Define 'clone'." He said simply.

"I KNEW IT" The captain shouted, and whipped out a gun from the inside of his jacket, and emptied its round in Seph X's chest. To a NORMAL machine, that might have hurt, but to Seph X, who was made completely out of Krotonite, it felt like someone poking him sharply on his chest.

Seph X cocked his head to the side.

"Wanna try that again?" He asked.

Seph X decided it was high tide to let people know who he was, and to drop the facade. He HAD to get to Midgar somehow, and if it meant to scare the living daylights out of a couple of humans then it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He slowly unbuttoned his cloak, allowing the cold air to blow across his steel body. Slowly, he allowed the wind to blow his cloak away.

His steely body flared with the morning light, quite nearly blinding the captain into a hasty retreat. Seph X took a step backwards, so as to let his audience to get a good look at him without the risk of going blind.

"As far as I can see it, there's two ways I can go about this. The easy one," Seph X produced a bag of gold pieces from his cloak which lay on the ground. "Or the hard one." Seph X reached behind his back, and wrapped his had around the handle of the Masamune. He slowly pulled it out of its sheath, with a long, satisfying hiss of steel scraping against steel. "You make the decision." Seph X raised the Masamune so that it touched the captain's chin.

And an EASY decision it suddenly became.

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Kahn snapped his eyes open momentarily, just to make sure that the blasted Cetra wasn't touching him. It really was bothersome going in between spells like that, but he HAD to make a point of pushing the Cetra away. He had to make it perfectly clear that he was doing this out of boredom.

Much to his satisfaction he saw the girl perched on a rock, looking skywards. It made him very happy to know that she was learning.

But there was certainly something familiar about her stance on that rock that made him conjure up memories of his own old, dead comrades. He almost sympathised with the girl, forever doomed to watch but never touch. But then again, death was always the second edition of life when you thought about it. At least you got to check people out when they were taking a shower.

The demon lord caught a glimpse of at what LOOKED like a tear, and hastily decided that this was something he shouldn't see. Along with many things, demons weren't renowned for mind boggling sympathy.

Instead of merely pretending he hadn't seen anything, like MOST people would have done, Kahn rudely coughed. Aeris snapped to attention, instantly wiping the tears away.

"Oh, Kahn. Checking up on me again?"

Kahn cleared his throat, thoroughly ignoring what he had seen a few minutes before.

"Yes. I must make sure that you're aware that I do NOT want someone clutching to me like a limpet, thank you very much."

Aeris hopped off the rock, landing on the ground soundlessly. Kahn shuddered. You could call the Demon lord a stereotype, but he held a firm belief that death was more organised than this. Dead people should REMAIN dead. Except demons. It was alright for them to come back after death. It was pretty muchly expected. Kahn just found it creepy that the laws of physics could reach beyond the grave.

"Hey, Kahn, do demons like you ever feel depressed?" Aeris asked.

Kahn laughed.

"Depressed? Sad? Cetra, you DO know who your speaking to, right? I'm a DEMON! I have no conscience. At some points I can even act AS one, but I don't have one myself. I rape, pillage, and slaughter until the day I died without regret. Hell, what fun would anything be if I started regretting it halfway? Only humans and Cetra were fool enough to become sad." Kahn laughed again.

Aeris took a step towards the demon.

"Don't you miss some people though? Anyone?"

Kahn shuddered. The Cetra was making a little too many nasty questions about him for him to simply ignore.

"What are you getting at? Did you look into my mind or something?" He asked suspiciously. When it came to Cetra he wouldn't discard ANY idea before it crawled into a dark corner and died.

"No, I'm just curious. But now I KNOW I'm on to something, and I'm not going to let it go until I know what exactly it is you miss!" Aeris giggled.

Kahn growled evilly, and went back to his magic. Sometimes he really wondered how evolution could result in such infuriating creatures.

Oh well.

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Elena walked coolly into Reeves office. She stood to attention, and saluted.

Reeve seemed a little preoccupied with something else, however. A book, it appeared.

The female Turk stealthily moved to the desk at which Reeve sat, and removed the book from his hands. Reeve coughed in surprise, nearly jumping back.

"What did you want, sir?" She asked, laying the book down.

Reeve cleared his throat.

"Well, I was wondering if you could do me a favour." Reeve asked.

Elena stood to attention again.

"Depends." She said.

"Answer the question. Can you or can't you?" He asked sternly.

Elena was slightly surprised about Reeves's sudden sternness, but not completely undaunted.

"Yes, sir." She said quickly.

"Good. I'd like you to escort Jarred Rath to the knighting."

Elena was slightly bemused about this. Couldn't Jarred protect himself?

"Sir, doesn't Jarred have the means to protect himself?" She asked.

Reeve picked up his book.

"I didn't mean THAT kind of escort. Jarred called me up from Junon a few days ago, and asked if I could get him a date for knighting. I've just about run out of candidates, as their all afraid of being burnt to death. You're the last choice. I wouldn't normally ask you, because that would probably embarrass both of you. I'm not ordering you to go, I'm just asking if you would."

Suddenly it became very clear to Elena, but as to why Jarred would want a date sounded weird. The last time she had seen the young Half Breed he was completely happy with himself, and didn't look like he needed anything more than a few buildings to destroy.

"Uhm, well, I SUPPOSE I could go. . ." She said hesitatingly. "But why does Jarred want an, escort?"

Reeve peeked over the rim of his book.

"I was hoping you might find out for me." He said, and buried himself in the book once more. "They'll be here in an hour or two, so if you could get readyI would be very grateful."

Elena cursed.

"I've heard that one before. You stole it from Cid, didn't you?" Reeve asked half attentively.

There was no answer. Reeve peeked over the top of his book.

Elena was already gone.