And now. Ladies and "Genteel-men", the moment you've all been waiting for. I bring you...CHAPTER4!

Chapter 4: The Dark Council

Five men and a woman sat around a round table in a darken room. Little light shone in the room, but there was enough light to see. There was one chair that was empty, reserved for their seventh member.

The body of Cait Sith's controller, Reeve, laid sprawled out in the middle of the table, bathed in a spotlight that was trained solely on him. Slowly, he worked his way back into conciseness. When he opened his eyes, he tried to look around but everything was a blur. He shook his head as he sat up. After a moment, his vision cleared a bit, and he was able to see better. Reeve studied his surroundings. As he took a good look around, he was met with 12 glowing eyes. Some green, some blue, the eyes just stared at him.

"Where..." he started with a gasp. "Where am I?"

But the men and the woman said nothing. They just looked at Reeve. After a moment, they looked at each other, as if holding some sort of unspoken communion.

Suddenly, two large doors to Reeve's left opened. Behind the doors was a light that flooded the room. A light so pure and bright, that Reeve had to squint to make out what was happening. But before he could see anything, the doors had closed. When his eyes re-adjusted to the darkness, he noticed that another pair of glowing eyes now occupied the seventh chair. But these eyes where different from the rest. Instead of glowing green, or blue like most of the other eyes, these eyes glowed an intense red. The red of war, and blood.

Reeve's vision had cleared up by now, and he could make out some features of the men and the woman. But Reeve was interested in the man with the red eyes. He had long, flowing black hair, which was the same color as his uniform. He noticed this right away. He quickly glanced around the room. Each person had a different uniform on. Some looked like Shinra issued uniforms, but they seemed to be decorated in a way that could reflect the owner's personality. The other uniforms where not recognizable, since they probably made their uniforms themselves. But all of the uniforms had a similar feel or theme to them. Reeve turned his attention back to the man with the red eyes.

Something about this man put the fear of Sephiroth into Reeve. Finally, Reeve spoke.

"Who are you?"

The man with the red eyes regarded him for a bit. He considered all the possible answers, but thought that the simplest was the best.

"You may call me Talon." he replied.

Reeve felt the deadly stares of the other men and especially the woman. "Where am I! What do you want! What is all of this!"

Talon spoke as a immortal being might speak to an insect that he was about to deliberately squish. "Where you are is unimportant. What IS important is that we are the Dark Council." Talon replied. "As for what we want... you will discover that in time." Laughter filled the room. "Just do as your told." Reeve felt like he just woke up in the lion's den.

But before Reeve could do anything, his world went into darkness again.

"But I HAVE to be let on!"

"I'm sorry lady, but I can't have passengers." The captain of the Lithavore looked at the woman sympathetically. "I'm sorry."

But the woman wouldn't leave it at that. "I'll do anything! Pay anything! But I HAVE to be let on!"

The captain sighed. "Listen lady. My insurance doesn't cover passengers. I just run a cargo ship! If I were to let you on, and you got hurt, I would have to pay for it out of my own pocket. And right now, I'm barely squeaking by as it is! There's nothing I can do. I'm sorry."

The woman was about to throw a fit, when a thought struck her. "Does your insurance cover your crew?"

The captain looked at her. "You know... I think it does." The captain quickly got out his insurance documents, looking for the right page. "Ah ha! Here it is!" The captain smiled. "Yes, it does cover my crew!" The captain put his documents away. "What's your area of expertise?"

"Engineering!" the woman replied enthusiastically.

"Perfect! Welcome aboard the Lithavore!" The captain shook the woman's hand as she came aboard. "Next stop, Bone Village!"

"Get up!"

Reeve felt someone kicking him. He wished they would just go away.

"Get up Reeve! Now!"
Reeve didn't like this new development. He was asleep, and someone from the outside world was waking him up by name. "Go away!" he muttered.

Suddenly, Reeve felt a bucket full of cold water hit him like a ton of bricks. He sat up immediately, and opened his eyes to see who had doused him in water.

To his surprise, he saw Reno, Rude, Elena and someone he didn't recognize standing over him. Reno was holding an empty bucket. Reno tried not to let his smile show, but it was obvious that he had enjoyed splashing him with water.

After a second, he turned his attention to Rude and Elena. When his eyes fell upon Elena, he immediately recognized her as the ticket lady at the Golden Saucer.

Reeve finally got the idea that it was all a trap for him.

After a moment of reflection, Reeve took a look at the new guy. He had a medium build, was slightly shorter than Rude, and had brown hair that had 2 white stripes along either side. He also wore a Turk uniform that closely resembled Elena's. He reminded Reeve of Tseng in some ways. Reno noticed his gaze. "Allow me to introduce Mark. Our newest recruit." He said annoyingly.

Reeve had half a mind to give Reno a round house punch, but gave that notion up. Fighting the Turks will do nothing. Reeve thought. He got up, and looked around. He was sitting in the middle of the Sector 6 market in Midgar.

Most of the people had left Midgar after Meteor came, but a few decided to stay, and try to fix the place up. Sadly, they were doing a poor job of it. The place was cleaner, but over 3/4ths of the city was still the way Meteor had left it.

But none of this crossed Reeve's mind as he got up. "So... What are the Turks doing here?"

Elena was about to answer, but Reno cut her off. "Looking for you. We had gotten an anonymous tip that you could be found in Midgar." Reno smiled. "Looks like the tip was right."

Rude shoved his hand into his pocket and fished out 200 Gil, which he promptly gave to Reno.

Reeve didn't like where this seemed to be leading. The Turks never did something without a reason. "But why come after me?"

"We need you again." Rude intersected.

"We need someone we can trust on the inside of AVALANCH again. They seem to be on the move again. Collecting everyone, but we're not sure what for." Elena explained.

Reeve got the notion. And he didn't like it. He'd already turned out to be a spy once. If he did so again, they would surely find out, and fry his ass. "But there MUST be another way. A bug, or something like that!" Reno smiled, and shook his head. "We did bug one them. The one called Cid. However, the bug has stopped transmitting. We can't even locate it anymore."

Rude Continued. "Our last transmission said something about Bone Village."

"Cid was heading in that direction when the bug stopped transmitting." Elena finished.

Reeve finally got to the part he wanted to know. "Who hired you? What is your mission?"

Reno looked at Reeve with a grin. "You know we can't answer that."

"You want my help? Tell me what I want to know. Otherwise, no deal!"

The Turks seem to consider this for a bit. They all looked at each other. Finally, Reno spoke. "We don't know who we are working for. There is a contact between us and them. However, he will only see me. As for the mission, we don't know. They just tell us what to do, and we do it. We don't ask why, and we don't care. We have no idea what the end result of this mission will be."

Reeve thought about this for a bit. "All right. I'm in." Until I discover what your true mission is. He added silently.

"Good." Reno replied. "We will be in contact."

And with that, The Turks slipped into the darkness.

Reeve decided that going himself would be too risky. He would have to take control of his Cait Sith body again. The problem was... he didn't know where it was!

Rocket Town was not the most hospitable town in the world. It seemed like no one would even give Barret the time of day. All he'd been doing was asking if anyone had an extra key to Cid's house.

Everyone was waiting for Barret to come back. Vincent, avoiding Yuffie, had disappeared the instant they'd set down.

Tifa and Yuffie leaned against the Highwind, watching Barret show off his people skills. Both Yuffie and Tifa where laughing softly. They both wore wide grins. Watching Barret's performance was the funniest thing they could do until Cid arrived.

Red came out of the Highwind and looked at Tifa and Yuffie. "What's so funny?" He asked. He followed their gaze over to where Barret was asking a little kid if his parents had a key to Mr. Highwind's house. The kid ignored Barret and just played in the sand and dirt.

"Oh. I see." Red also laughed a little, but then turned around and looked for Vincent. Red walked around to the back of Cid's house, where Cid had kept both Tiny Broncos. But there was something new, or something he just hadn't noticed before. Red walked over, and tried to clear the bushes away from the object. Finally, he'd cleared enough to see what it was.

Before Red stood a door. The back of the building sloped steeply down, so Red figured it led below ground. Red tried to open the door, but noticed that there was a large metal lock on it.

Red knew he shouldn't, but his curiosity got the better of him. He lifted his front left paw, and extended his claw. He slipped it into the lock, and twisted. Nothing happened. He tried again. This time, there was a definite CLICK sound. He opened the door with his tail, and walked in.

A shaft of light from the doorway lit the stairs for about 20 feet. Red looked around, and found a light switch. He flipped it. Slowly, one by one, lights lit up the stairs. Red walked down them a bit, when he heard a KLANG sound. He turned around to see that the door had closed behind him. He ran back to the door, but saw that there was a knob on the lock.

Good. he thought. At least I'm not locked in.

Red turned around, and walked down the stairs. At the bottom, he found a luminous wall of light. It blocked his path. The wall looked made of some liquid, reflecting Red's image. But Red could also see through it. It looked like a large cavern was behind it.

Red tentatively stuck his paw into the wall. It felt warm, like bathwater. But it also had a tingling sensation to it that Red had never felt before. He pulled his paw out. It wasn't wet at all. It was as dry as it was when he put it in.

Red took another good look at the wall. He looked at the sides of it, where it met the brick of the opposing walls. On one side was a little box with several buttons. All of them had some sort of ancient writing on them that even Red did not recognize. However, there where two buttons that had tape on them. In Cid's handwriting, one said ON and the other said OFF. Unsure, Red pressed the OFF button.

The liquid wall vanished. Behind it, the end of the tunnel went on for about a meter or two. Red wondered where the cavern went. He pressed the ON button, and the liquid wall appeared, with the large cavern behind it.

Red then decided to trust fate, closed his eyes, and jumped into the wall.

Reeve stood outside the main building of Shinra Inc. He was surprised to see it still stood as tall as it did. He was even more surprised to see some of the windows had lights shinning in them.

Well at least I won't have to stumble around in the dark. Reeve thought as he entered the building.

The inside of the building looked little better than the outside. Several displays where crushed where support beams had fallen. Ceiling tiles lay where they had fallen, most of them broken into several pieces.

Reeve made his to the elevators in the back. He held out little hope that they would work. When he pressed the UP button, he was surprised to see the doors open. Without looking, he almost walked in. But he pulled himself back to safety. He looked down to see that the elevator had fallen since he was here last. It now lay in several broken pieces at the bottom of the shaft. We sure did skimp on construction costs!

Reeve pressed the UP button again. The other elevator started it's descent. When the doors opened, he looked in first. On the floor of the elevator where several decomposed rats. Obviously they got stuck inside.

He ignored the smell, and pressed the button for level 64. He had a rather uneventful trip up. But when the doors opened, he found himself facing several deformed creatures. They where munching away on a very large rat, almost as long as Reeve's arm.

Damn Hojo! he thought. He slowly walked out of the elevator, and walked around the corner without making a sound. When he was out of sight, he sighed a heavy sigh of relief. He carefully looked around, and found the stairway to level 65. He ran up the steps as fast as he could, until he reached the 67th level. As he exited the stairs, he carefully looked to the left, then to the right.

The hallway was clear. Reeve snuck over to Hojo's Office. There, he found what he was looking for. The portable Cait Sith controller.

It was made into a simple headset, with a speaker on one ear, a microphone, so he could speak, and an eyepiece that flipped over one eye, allowing him to be able to walk, and control Cait Sith at the same time. He grabbed a left handed control pad, and plugged it into the headset. Carefully, Reeve slipped the headset on, and gripped the control pad in his left hand.

I sure hope the batteries aren't dead! And with that thought, Reeve pressed the power button.

Sarah had heard about the famous cat that rode a moogle. She had begged her mother to take her to the Nibelheim Shinra Museum for weeks before her mother finally gave in.

And now here she was. She took a map from the nice man at the door, and opened it up.

She quickly located what she wanted to see.

"Mommy! Come on! I want to go see it now!" She said as she dragged her mother along.

"Ok, honey! We'll go see it now." her mother replied with a shake of her head.

They had climbed the stairs to the upper level, and went into what was once Tifa's room. As Sarah walked into the door, she saw it!

There, standing perfectly still in the sunlight, was the stuffed body of Cait Sith.

Sarah pulled her mom into the room, then went up to look at it more closely.

Cait Sith just stood there. Cait Sith's fur was very clean because he was washed just the other day.

Sarah was afraid that he would be behind a velvet rope, or something and couldn't touch him. Fortunately, he just sat there, the only thing indicating that it was a display being the little stand with a blurb of information about Cait Sith.

Sarah ran up, and gave Cait Sith a great big hug! She could almost imagine him hugging her back. She opened her eyes to find that he WAS hugging her!

This only excited Sarah even more. Her mother was gasping in shock!

"Hi!" Cait Sith said, as he waved to the mother.

Sarah's mom just fainted.

Jim expected some strange things to happen to him. He had listened to Cloud and Tifa's weekly story telling at the Inn. He knew that being around them was both an honor, and an invitation to the strange and dangerous.

But nothing had prepared Jim for seeing the Cait Sith body, which he had cleaned the other day, to walk down the stairs of its own accord. Jim's mouth dropped.

"You might want to get a doctor upstairs. A woman fainted." Cait Sith told him.

Jim just nodded, his mouth still gaping. He watched Cait Sith as he hopped out of town.

Barret finally had given up, and just busted the door down. He was now using Cid's tools to repair it. And he didn't like it one bit! Here he was, the sheriff of Corel, breaking into a friend's house. He had half a mind to arrest himself.

"Here you are." Tifa walked up to Barret with a glass of lemonade. Barret took it and glugged half of it down.

"Thanks!" He finally said. He'd been working on this door all day now, and he still wasn't ready to put it back on. But having a gun for a hand didn't help. "Where's the little squirt?"

"Oh, Yuffie?" Tifa stretched a bit. "Ohh... I'd say she's looking for Vincent. She still hasn't gotten an answer from him. I think he's having fun with her." Tifa smiled that friendly smile of hers. Barret was happy to see Tifa finally smile again.

"Serves her right." He finally commented. "After what she did to us when we went to get our materia!" Barret took another sip of his drink.

"Hey! She didn't know it was you!" Tifa retorted.

Tifa recalled that they'd arrived at Wutai in the middle of the night. She wanted everyone to stay aboard the Highwind until dawn, but Barret was just too eager to wait. He jumped off, and ran up to Yuffie's house. He was about to knock on the door, when this little ninja jumped onto his head. The ninja held Barret in a tight grip that almost sent him into unconsciousness, but Barret had backed into a rock, knocking the wind out of the ninja, and sending the ninja to the ground. Barret cocked his gun, and aimed it at the ninja. In the light, he could see that the ninja was Yuffie.

Yuffie apologized, saying that she didn't know it was him. All she saw was this huge man running up to her house. She thought it was a test! She eventually gave them their materia, but had snuck aboard the Highwind when they weren't looking. Barret had put his foot down that she would NOT come with them. But they where already halfway to Cosmo Canyon when they found out she was aboard. She had gotten too queasy, and had gone up to the deck, to puke over the side.

Barret just looked at Tifa. "She could have waited until I tried to bust the door down." Barret shot back. But he knew that it was useless to argue with Tifa.

She also knew it, and didn't continue the conversation. But another matter popped into her mind.

"Have you seen Red?"

Barret thought about it. "No. Not since we touched down. But then again, I was a little busy." He indicated the door.

"No one has seen him for about an hour, and I'm starting to get worried." Tifa explained.

"Don't worry." Barret soothed. "He's a big... uhh... boy. He can handle himself. I'm just sure he's off somewhere reading some old book."

Barret didn't know how right he was.

Red sat in the middle of the cavern, reading an old children's book. He had chosen it because it would be simple enough that he could start to understand what the other books said. He had already learned their alphabet, their numbers, and several types of remarkable words, and ideas.

One such word in particular, was the word "Esper". He could almost translate what it meant. His best guess so far was "spirit of magnicite." Whatever that meant.

"So."

Red jumped at the sound of another voice. He turned and saw Vincent.

"You found me." Was all that he said.

"I wasn't looking for you." Red replied as non-chantly as he could. "Where are we?" Red inquired.

Vincent looked around. "I don't know for sure. I found that passage about 32 years ago,

before Shinra built Rocket City. When I realized what Shinra would do with it, I hid the passage as best I could." Vincent smiled, in spite of himself. "I came back about a month after we killed Sephiroth, only to find that Cid had discovered it. He knew about it even before Shinra had started to build the rocket."

Vincent walked over to a wall where a desk was sitting. Above the desk was a painting of a man. Red walked over and read the subject of the portrait. It said "Setzer Gabbiani". Red checked the artist's name, which was simply labeled as "Relm Arrowny". Red was amazed by how life-like the painting was...

By the painting was a push button. Vincent pushed it. Suddenly, the whole cavern lit up. Behind Red, in the main area of the cavern, was an airship similar to the Highwind. On the side of it where letters.

Red tried to spell them out. "F-A-L-C-O-N... Falcon?" Red sat in puzzlement. The Highwind was the first airship ever built. But this one looked well over 50 years old!

"Where ARE we!"

Vincent spoke in an ominous tone. "As I said before, I'm not sure. But I believe we are in the far distant past..."

Yuffie sat on top of the Inn. She was careful not to make a sound as she approached her prey. She thought she had caught a glimpse of Vincent's cloak going into a nearby ally. She slowly crouched down and approached her target. And that's when it happened.

A loose tile gave away under her foot, and she fell down into the ally. She rubber her bottom, and looked around for her prey. But she only saw a cat, wearing a little cape, the same color as Vincent's. She swore at herself for being tricked like that. She walked by the appliance building, and decided to watch a little TV. She turned her attention to the rows of TVs, and found one that had the news on it. She was about to pass it, when a picture of Reeve appeared. She un-muted the TV.

"- Mayor-Elect Reeve has not accepted his position as mayor. When we checked his offices, we were told that he had taken some personal time. His offices did not say exactly where he had gone, or when he would return, but stressed that he' been working hard lately, and needed some time to relax. However, if he is listening, we would like to remind mayor-elect Reeve that he must accept his position by 6 p.m. on Friday, two days from now, or forfeit his status of mayor-elect to the runner up."

Yuffie was surprise by this. Reeve seemed to have worked hard to get that position. She doubted that he would give it up by not returning in time.

"In financial news today, the Golden Saucer stated that an anonymous infusion of money has pulled the Golden Saucer out of it's financial troubles. When we spoke to the Owner, Dio, he stated that he was estatic about this outcome, and that prices would return to normal within a few days."

"Excuse me, miss. Can I help you?" A man asked. Yuffie turned and looked at him. He was almost as young as she was. Perhaps a bit older... He had brown hair that came down to his shoulder, but was currently in a ponytail. He was taller than her, wore thin brimmed glasses that complimented his soft, brown eyes, and he also wore the store's standard outfit. He gave her a smile that almost made her melt.

"No... No thanks." Yuffie replied as she walked out the door. She took one last look at him, and vowed to get to know him better later. He was cute. She shook her head, then continued her hunt for Vincent.

The swords clanged again.

"Give up. You shall never Exist!" the Dark One taunted.

"You Existed for a time. But others like me stopped you." The Light One retorted. Their swords clashed again. "It is just a matter of time before I Exist." The Light One took a swipe at the Dark One. The Dark One quickly dodged to one side, and counter-swung.

The sword cut the Light One across the arm. The cut did not bleed blood, for they did not have any. But a little bit of the Light One's Will began to ooze from the cut. The Light one had to back off for a bit, to heal himself quickly.

But that gave the Dark One all the time he needed to perform a simple task...

Stay tune for further updates!