Hey guys! Thanx again for reading and reviewing this. I really really appreciate that. Thank you. Um.. the next probably three chapters will focus on just Squall and company after they broke out of the castle. I hope you guys like The Ruby Widow cause its gonna make Omega look weak. O.OHave fun!
Disclaimer: I own nothing in here except (What was it? Three characters? I dont remember.) But I do own the Ruby Widow! -the name just sounds so cool!- Uh-oh! I'm turning into Laguna!
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"The Ruby Widow?" Squall asked, raising an eyebrow that was only just visible through his hair. "Just what is the Ruby Widow?"
Seifer frowned. "I'm getting there if you would stop interrupting me. I told you that this was already going to take long enough. Why are you trying to make it worse?" He slammed his fist down on his knee and ignored the pain that began to shoot up and down his leg as a result.
Squall continued to glare at him but said nothing. He had given him plenty of opportunities to get on with it and he hadn't.
Rinoa turned to Squall. Why was he being so mean? If it wasn't for Seifer, they would be still locked in that dungeon. "Squall, why are you being so hard on him? He's trying to explain, and you just continue to tell him off. Why don't you just shut up and let him talk?"
The look she recieved made her wish that she had not said anything. Her words not only angered him severely, but she had a feeling that she had hurt him too. The only thing was that she couldn't stand to let Squall bully up on him anymore.
"Fine," he snarled, "I'll shut up. You," he thrust a finger in Seifer's direction. "Keep talking and I won't interrupt."He sounded so mad, angrier than she had ever seen him, and that anger was directed at her. She looked down at the ground and blinked back tears. Why couldn't she just keep her mouth shut? Just once, why couldn't she hold her tongue?
Seifer felt a lump almost stick permantently in his throat. He had to continue though. He didn't want Squall to slice him in half. He still had a purpose. He still had a reason to live.
"The Ruby Widow is a deadly, indestructable monster," he finally started. "You guys remember how hard Omega was? You remember being told that Omega is a bad monster to run into? That it's really bad luck?" he asked them. They nodded. Painful memories popped back into their heads. Well, Quistis and Rinoa nodded. Squall did or said nothing. He was grinding his teeth together in anger. His hands were clenched in fists of hate. It would have been an understatement to say that he was mad. Wait, he wasn't mad. He was furious. He wanted to pummel somebody.
"The Ruby Widow is actually a monster that has two different monsters in it. It was made by fusing two DNAs together. Dr. Odine had a hand in creating it. But what fused the DNAs together was magic. Strong magic."
"So Laguna theory was correct?" Quistis asked Squall and Rinoa.
"I guess so," Rinoa answered because she knew that Squall wouldn't. It would take a while before he cooled down.
"What?" Seifer broke concentration momentarily.
"Laguna told us about a DNA magic fusion theorem. Keep going," Quistis urged him to continue.
"What all did he tell you?" Seifer asked, ignoring her request for the moment. He wanted to know if they knew it all. The probablilty that they did was slim at best.
"That after Ultimecia had possesed Edea for so long, her cells had begun to show signs of fusion with Ultimecia's causing a completely different DNA to form. Even though that sort of thing has never happened, it is possible beacuse it only affects magic-based principles," Quistis answered and Seifer smiled in satisfaction. They knew the basics. That would make this a bit easier.
"That's good. You guys understand that stuff," Seifer stated. "The Ruby Weapon was created using that same idea. When Dr. Odine figured out that magic had that property to change science in a way that has never before been seen in the field, he wanted to do experiments but knew that Esthar would never allow it. So he chose a careful amount to tell them and went with that. What you guys know isn't even half."
"You mean there's more to that?" Rinoa asked. She stared wide-eyed at the young man.
"Yep, you guessed it. There is a lot more. I can try to explain it as best as I can to you, but I don't even get it. I only know the basics on how the Ruby Widow was created. The rest you'll have to get from Dr. Odine. I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you everything." He twirled his right hand. "Anyway, that crazy doctor figured out from the samples taken from Edea, as you know, that with a magic source strong enough, two or more DNA make-ups could be fused into one to create one Hell of a creation. The only thing was that he didn't have a magic source strong enough. Edea wasn't strong enough, and you, Rinoa, were protected in about a million different ways. To him, you were completely unreachable. So he was stuck."
"Stuck?" Quistis asked. "Then how did he create the Ruby Widow thing?"
"I'm getting to that." Seifer laughed at her curiosity. He managed to look over and Squall and was relieved to see that he was listening intently and no longer had that look that made him want to kill. "Dr. Odine was able to find a magic source that could fuel his experiments. When he gained access to that sort of power, he went all out. He wanted to test the DNA theorem on monsters. He wanted to create a monster that was indestructible. He had the help he needed and the subjects of his choice to do it with."
"And what were those subjects?" Squall asked, no longer caring that he was interrupting. "Surely not anything based on Omega Weapon or Ultima Weapon."
"You're lucky there. Omega and Ultima had too many flaws," Seifer answered.
"Too many flaws! I'm guessing he never fought them!" Quistis literally shrieked.
"Too many chemical compositional flaws. If he were to have altered either of their DNA patterns, it would have caused an imbalance in their chemical make-ups and would have resulted in the death of the specimen. He needed something with a DNA pattern that would be able to withstand the changes that he would apply to it. One of them was actually a machine."
"A machine? How does that count? Machine's don't have DNA patterns." Quistis shook her head. "How is there anyway he could have altered it if it doesn't have a pattern to alter."
"He used a machine with a brain. It was probably Galbadia's best creation and the closest thing they would have ever gotten to in monster-based machinery." Seifer explained.
"X-ATM092. It's based on the movement of an actual Black Widow. They took the real spider and basically programmed its brain into a computer that they could control," Squall answered quickly.
"Exactly. That was one of the things he used. It was perfect because it was indestructible. The other monster was the Ruby Dragon. It had a stable DNA that he could tamper with. Using an enormous amount of magic, he created the Ruby Widow. It's a monster that has the grace of a spider, the force of about ten Omega Weapons, and its own stock of magic. It has immunity to everything. You can't kill it. It also doesn't help that the thing's Breath attack is almost as strong as 8 nuclear bombs. You program your target into it. There's a chip on it somewhere that once you program that target, it won't stop until that target is obliterated from the face of the planet. If you thought Omega was hard, wait 'til you meet this thing."
"And you're sure that we'll be obtaining the acquaintance of this experiment?" Quistis asked.
"You bet. I don't think its defeatable. Unless you guys can think of any way to stop it." Seifer frowned.
"Easy. We destroy it the way it was made. Diffusion," Squall replied. "That's your best bet."
"When will we know that this thing is near?" Rinoa asked. She had been pulling at a string in her black shorts and was very close to ripping them.
"I'm not sure, but once it finds us, we better run like Hell." Seifer shivered a bit. Caves. He hated caves.
"Well, we can't lead the thing to Esthar! That's putting too many people in danger!" Quistis exclaimed.
"Good point." Squall crossed his arms and bent his head slightly in thought. "Seifer," his tone was still very harsh, "is this all you know about it? Do you know anything about the properties of diffusion? What about Odine?"
"That's all I know. And about diffusion, I don't know much about it, sorry. I'm pretty sure that Odine doesn't know about diffusion. He was mainly concerned about the fusion properties. I don't think he cares about going backwards," he answered.
"Well, we'll have to wing it." Squall stood and walked away from them, farther into the cave. They didn't know just how deep it was. "Give me some time to come up with an idea."
"Seifer, just what are we up against? Are we up against Ultimecia, some freaky monster, or Odine? I mean he certainly had a hand in this. Is he good or bad?" Quistis questioned once Squall was gone from sight.
"Well, I'd prefer to tell you that when he was listening." Seifer nodded his head in the direction of the way Squall had gone. "He needs to hear this as well. It's crucial."
"Well, while he's off doing his own thing, could you tell us a little bit more about this Ruby Widow?" Rinoa asked. She knew the other thing. She didn't know about Ruby Widow.
"Ok, I can do that. What do you want to know? I can do what I can but I'm warning you now, I don't know that much about it. I only know what I was told, but that's better than nothing, right?" He laughed a little but it was clear that he was nervous. Very nervous.
"Just tell us anything that you left out earlier. It doesn't matter. I would just like to know more. Maybe we can help Squall figure something out. Diffusion might be our only option but I want to try out all that may be available to us," Rinoa answered. She pulled her knees us to her chest as she shivered in the sudden cold she felt. She silently hoped that she would be left alone. She didn't want her mind to be tapped and controlled like Cid's was.
"Alright. I told you that this thing was aimed to be impossible to defeat, right? That wasn't exactly what he had intended at first. He was trying to make a monster that could be strong enough to take you guys on and wouldn't fail too easily."
"So that's why he used X-ATM092. It's impossible to completely deplete the thing of its HP. And with the combined brain power of the Ruby Dragon, it makes this thing very difficult," Quistis put in.
"Yeah. The Ruby Dragon is a very smart dragon and it can easily make decisions that will be beneficial to itself during battle. This doesn't go by its instincts like most monsters, this bad boy has its own brain that thinks almost identical to a human's. Odine made sure, after he figured out that he could really alter its composition, that his creation would give its enemies a run for their money."
"So Odine created this monster? Just where did he do it? Surely they would notice if he created it in Esthar," Quistis reasoned. Rinoa nodded in agreement.
"He didn't do it in Esthar. He fed them some sort of excuse that he needed to go to the Centra Crater. Near the Centra Ruins, in the heart of the mountain there, there is a reactor," Seifer explained.
"A reactor? What do you mean by a reactor?" Quistis questioned him. She had never heard of anything of that sort being in the Centra Crater.
"Well, that's what Odine calls it. He said the actual name is in some ancient language that he knows little to nothing about. Anyway, this reactor is this giant machine capable of harnessing thousands upon thousands streams of magic. When all that magic is directed at one individual target, you have the option to direct it at just where you want it to go. Like you could use parts of a stream to focus on, in this case, altering a subject's chemical composition. That's what happened initially. The rest I'm not sure about," Seifer told them whilst fiddling with his old trench coat. Yes, he still had that thing.
"Are you positive that this thing is indestructible? I mean, is that really possible? There are ways to defeat X-ATM092, they just take a bit of time. And Omega Weapon was considered impossible to defeat. The same with Ultima Weapon as well. And we defeated them. Is indestructible really possible to accomplish?" Quistis wondered to both Seifer and Rinoa.
"Well, Odine did all these tests on it and from what he concluded, it was." Seifer shrugged.
"Yes, but did he try any sort of diffusion or another form of magic? What kind of magic did he use?" Squall asked, coming back into view. He stopped and stood behind Rinoa. She hugged her knees harder. Her head had begun to spin and she hoped it was from lack of sleep. Or fatigue. She hoped it was anything other than what she feared.
"Not that I know of. I seriously doubt it if he did though. Nah, probably not. And the magic? It was strong magic. Very strong magic." Seifer frowned and decided that this would be the time to tell them.
"What kind of magic? I'm not interested in how strong it was. Not just yet anyway. What kind was it?" Squall pushed.
"What do you mean exactly?" He pushed that mental note aside. They needed to focus on one thing at a time.
Squall sighed. "The kind of magic. Supportive, elemental, indirect, effect?"
Seifer shook his head and tried to think back. "It wasn't any of those. It was pure black magic."
"That's impossible! Black magic died out centuries ago! That couldn't have been it!" Quistis objected.
"I don't think so. I believe I read somewhere about Esthar scientists finding traces of Black Magic in Centra. It was only traces. They weren't for sure if it was really Black Magic," Squall answered, waving her argument away. She frowned at him, aggravated.
"That wasn't what they probably found traces of," Seifer told him. "You remember the Lunar Cry that happened before Ultimecia's?" They all nodded. "Well, historians are believing that there was once an ancient group in Centra that had built technology resources inside the mountains. Before the Lunar Cry, there was a huge chain of mountains that they built all this stuff inside. Most of the chain was destroyed along with the stuff inside. Those historians think that those ancients may have predicted the Lunar Cry but couldn't do anything about it. Well, Odine found that reactor and was pretty sure that it was one of the technology resources that were built in the chain and survived the force of the Lunar Cry. It was completely spared from damages and he found it easy to start. Somehow the ancients kept it from being harmed."
"It must have been something important if it was the only thing that was left," Quistis reasoned.
"Seifer, just how much does Odine know about this machine that you said he found in Centra?" Squall asked. He kneeled and set a hand on Rinoa's shoulder. She felt cold. Even through his thick gloves he could feel how cold she was. He gripped her shoulder to let her know that he was there. He wasn't mad anymore. He knew she was right and had no real reason to be mad at her.
"I don't think he knows very much about it personally. There was writing carved in it all over. The writing was clear but it was in a different language. But Odine didn't say anything about it to anyone. He's kept it a secret form Esthar because they could figure out what he's done."
"Wait! How did he start it? Everything runs on some sort of energy. What did he use to start it?" Quistis asked.
"Generators form Esthar. He just continued to give Esthar excuses. I think this was right after he found the fusing thing in Edea. Which means he probably told them he was going to do experiments of Edea at her home," Seifer answered, shaking his head.
"Do you think Matron knows anything?" Quistis asked.
"Probably not. She might know some of the history of the ancient peoples that we can get but that may be it," Squall said, thinking it over.
"Squall, I think that there is something else about this machine. Why else would it be the only thing left? And weren't there some survivors of the Cry?" Quistis voiced her thoughts and doubts.
"Yeah there were. They were traumatized and recorded that they didn't remember anything that had happened. They were found by other people when they went to find out what happened there," Squall answered.
"So they had amnesia?" Quistis asked. She had never taken the subject of World History. It wasn't a requirement so she never took it.
"A form of it, yes. If they ever recovered from it, we don't know. Those who took care of the survivors recorded that they were in the same state by the time the recordings were stopped," he answered again.
Rinoa shook her head fiercely. Everything became clear again. Whatever it was that had happened, she was fine now. It passed. It was gone. She was easily able to pick up where they were at in this conversation. "Is there any way that maybe they were affected by radiation poisoning?" she asked.
"What do you mean? Radiation poisoning?" Seifer asked her. He raised an eyebrow.
"Well, you said that historians believed that those ancient people had technology resources right? And that they may have been able to predict the Lunar Cry? Well, what if that machine was able to put out a force field of some sort that protected those survivors from the Cry? That would explain almost everything. It would explain why that one machine survived, why only a few people survived, and why they suffered from what they did in the aftermath," Rinoa rubbed her hands up her arms in an attempt to warm herself.
"Hmm. I never thought of it that way," Seifer nodded in agreement with her.
"So Odine is using this machine for something completely different from what it was originally designed for? Is that it?" Squall demanded. He stood back up.
"It would seem that way." Quistis also stood as she spoke.
"Couldn't that be dangerous, though? Using something for what it wasn't intended for?" Rinoa took the hand that Squall had extended to her and he helped her up.
"Extremely dangerous," Seifer answered as Squall nodded.
"Then, what's the chance that the next time Odine, or anyone else for that matter, puts an excessive amount of magic into the machine that it backfires and causes an explosion of some sort?" Rinoa asked.
"I don't know. Probably pretty good if too much magic is fed into the thing. Odine said that it can hold a lot of streams of magic but he didn't say what the exact amount that it could really hold. I don't even think he knows." Seifer headed towards the mouth of the cave. He looked back at them. A look of confusion and irritation clouded his features.
"What's wrong?" Quistis walked over to him. Rinoa and Squall followed.
"I'm just wondering where that thing is at. I know I should be glad that it's not here, but still. You'd think that someone would realize that you guys are gone. This is weird."
"Let's just be glad that we haven't run into it yet," Squall said tersely. "What we need to be doing is figuring out just what to do with destroying this Ruby Widow. You say that it's indestructible, but there has got to be something that can defeat it. Everything has a weakness."
"Maybe itself is the only thing that can hurt it," Rinoa suggested. "Maybe it is its own weakness. That and the diffusion option. Maybe that's what we have to do to get rid of it."
"I don't know why you all are worrying. It's not here. Maybe it's not coming. We should try to get back to Esthar as soon as possible and not worry about it if it's not here." Quistis put her hands on her hips, going back to Instructor Mode again.
"Oh, don't worry, it's coming, whether you guys like it or not. That thing is coming," Seifer assured her. "So heading back to Esthar may be a bad idea."
Suddenly, they felt a tremor in the ground. Another one followed and then another and another and another.
"What is that?" Squall asked. He moved to the mouth of the cave but had a difficulty getting there because the tremors had become a lot stronger with each one that passed.
"Unless I'm mistaken, that would be the Ruby Widow," Seifer replied. He wavered in his voice just a bit. He made the appearance that he was calm but just how long that would last was the ultimate question.
Squall looked outside. A huge shadow fell over the mouth of the cave.
"Oh…my…Hyne." Squall was finally able to manage out in a shocked, almost frightened, and overwhelmed voice.
A/N: AHHH! The Ruby Widow has made its appearance! What will happen next! Oh my! I'm so scared. You wanna know why? Cause I don't even know what happens next! See, these next two chapters aren't even in my original notebook. I added these because I needed to add something else. I needed my own monster and by-golly, I've got one. I hope you guys have fun! Later Days peeps! Thanx for all the reviews!
Hint for the next chapter: Picture this: A Mixture between the Ruby Dragon and X-ATM092. There is also a lot of fangs, a massive tail, and one Hell of a huge monster. Good luck Squall, Seifer, Rinoa, and Quistis. You are going to need it.
A/N2: Guys, I am so sorry but I am very stuck. It will probably be a while before another chapter is posted. I am working on the next chapter and it is going to be difficult. I am sorry. Please don't hate me! I love you guys!
E/N: CRUD! I even got my grimy paws on your notebooks before this story was posted but I never got to read about Ruby Widow! Jeez! And now you just leave me hangin'? Cruel and unusual! And there is NO FREAKING WAY IN HYNE I'm going to try to draw Ruby Widow, NO WAY. By the way, when's the other anonymous red-haired person going to show? -Ahem-