Chapter 28
Wherefore Art Thou Centre Time?
Samael ducked under what felt like the millionth attack by a Shadow and kicked its feet out from under it. He quickly smashed a foot down on the creature's face before it could get up.
"That's thirty for me!" Sam yelled.
Chaos landed in front of Sam, "One hundred forty-nine."
"You're cheating," Sam said.
Chaos casually gave a backhand to an approaching Shadow, "One hundred fifty."
"Okay, fine, you win," Sam muttered, "next time we should play a normal game though, like pool or something."
"How do we find this doorway, we've wasted enough time here," Chaos said.
"Let's start by flying out of here, shall we?" asked Sam starting to float upward, Chaos followed suit and flapped his huge wings.
They both left the ground-based creatures behind.
"Now, I'm not entirely sure here, but logically the door would have to be some place the key would think to look," Sam said flying through the air beside Chaos.
"Nibelheim?" asked Chaos.
"Maybe, home town, it's possible," Sam agreed, "but there's no way to know for sure."
"Is that where we're going?" asked Chaos.
"It's a start," Sam said nodding.
They redirected their course and headed toward Nibelheim.
"There's a very Dragonball Z vibe from this whole flying through the air thing," Sam commented. "Seeing as you don't know what that is you might as well just take my word for it."
Chaos ignored him.
"Of course that show really isn't action oriented enough for me, it's like all anime, really," Sam continued, "they manage to drag out fifty episodes, only moving about a mile or so toward their destination the whole time. How do they do this? Well, I'll tell you, because all they do for most of it is stand around and talk about stuff, there might be a fight scene here and there, but mostly it's just the group of good guys walking along incredibly slow with some half-demon guy sporting cat ears. That's not Dragonball Z, that's another show, but you get my point."
"Sam," Chaos said.
"Yeah?'
"Shut up," Chaos replied casually.
"Sorry," Sam said, "but you see I have a valid point?"
"You never have a valid point, Sam," Chaos muttered deadpan.
"Okay, but they gave Inuyasha cat ears, he looks like a fool," Sam said.
"Look straight ahead," Chaos said ignoring Sam yet again.
Sam did and saw their destination, "Nibelheim, bulls-eye, question is: where in Nibelheim?"
"How big is this invisible door?" asked Chaos.
"Big enough, it will reveal itself once we're near enough with the White Materia," Sam said indicating the Materia in his hand.
Sam and Chaos landed in Nibelheim, the town was, predictably, deserted. Devoid of any Shadows it appeared as well.
"Okay," Sam said, "we should start at Cloud's house, go from there."
They entered Cloud's house and Sam walked around it with the White Materia.
"Nothing," Sam muttered, "Tifa's house?"
"Childhood friend," Chaos said nodding.
They moved over to Tifa's house and did another search.
"The piano," Sam said walking over to it, "any significance?"
"I'm not sure," Chaos said.
Sam moved the Materia over it, "Nothing."
"Shinra Mansion, maybe?" asked Chaos.
"There are a lot of places with significance here," Sam said shaking his head.
"We need to find the one with the most significance," Chaos said.
They went over to the Shinra Mansion, as soon as they stepped inside Sam shook his head, "This place has more significance to you than Cloud I don't think it's going to be here."
They searched the mansion anyways, after a few minutes of doing so it appeared Sam had been correct.
"Damn it," Sam muttered, "this isn't looking good."
"We need a place that absolutely affects Cloud in the largest way," Chaos said, "maybe the Northern Crater?"
"Maybe," Sam said.
They needed a place that meant the world to Cloud, a place so significant that if he lost his memory this place would be familiar to him.
Chaos's yellow eyes flashed with an idea, "Of course."
Sam looked at him, "What?"
"City of the Ancients," Chaos said.
Sam shook his head, "Why, that place…"
"…Aeris," Chaos said cutting Sam off.
Sam seemed to understand, "My God, you're right, the altar where Aeris died!"
"It would make sense," Chaos commented.
"My creepy and winged friend you may be right," Sam said, "let's see if you are."
Chaos and Sam took flight yet again and headed toward the City of the Ancients.
"If this is the place then it might be crawling with Shadows," Sam said.
"Like those?" asked Chaos pointing forward.
Sam saw two winged Shadows like the one Vincent had killed before.
"Yes, like those," Sam agreed.
"I'll clear us a path," Chaos said and shot forward leaving Sam behind.
"Show off," Sam murmured.
Chaos rocketed directly at the left-hand Shadow, seeing its enemy heading toward it the Shadow decided to speed up as well.
The two collided head-on…sort of. Where there should have been a collision there was, instead, a dead Shadow.
A crimson streak seemed to shoot right through the Shadow and come out behind it. After a moment the Shadow appeared to fall into two halves and disappear.
"Major show off," Sam said.
The second Shadow turned and attacked Chaos who immediately flew straight upward and avoided the attack. Chaos then shot back down from the sky and landed on the Shadow's back. He drove his silver clawed hand into the Shadow's head and his finger tips appeared as they exited through the creature's bottom jaw. Chaos pulled his arm back out and took flight again, the Shadow slowly dropped out of the sky, dead.
Sam floated up beside Chaos.
"You're kind of sadistic in a cool way," Sam said.
Chaos said nothing and started flying off toward their destination, Sam followed.
They arrived at the City of the Ancients and landed back on the ground.
Inside there were quite a few Shadows, a lot more than there had been outside.
"They really packed 'em in tight here," Sam commented.
Chaos held out his right hand and a large gun appeared in it from nowhere. It looked far too big to be a pistol but Chaos held it easily in one hand. Its large barrel was shaped in such a way that the front of the gun looked to be designed like a cross. The weapon was called Death Penalty, and as soon as Sam saw it he recognized it.
"That was my favourite part of Dirge of Cerberus," Sam said.
"What?" asked Chaos.
Sam shook his head, "Nothing, go ahead, do your path-clearing thing."
Chaos looked toward his enemies and aimed Death Penalty. When Chaos pulled the trigger entire groups of Shadows were destroyed. The extremely powerful bullets in the gun didn't stop when they hit Shadows, instead they kept going right through the next Shadow behind the last one, and then the next Shadow behind that one, all the way back until there were no more Shadows in a straight line to kill.
Chaos fired Death Penalty constantly as he and Sam walked along, the huge gun clearing a convenient path toward their destination.
"After all this I hope we are actually going the right way," Sam said over Chaos' gunfire.
Chaos fired away, killing numerous Shadows, until they finally reached the stairway. They took that downward, it was free of Shadows. As they hit the bottom they found this area, too, was clear.
"Home free," Sam said, "let's see if this works."
Sam used his telekinesis to float himself over the water and on to the altar. He held up the White Materia.
Nothing happened.
Sam cursed, "You gotta be fu…"
Suddenly the altar exploded with light that was so intense it forced both Chaos and Sam to jump back and cover their eyes. As the bright light subsided they both saw that they had come to the right place.
A few feet in front of Sam was a large blue circle floating in the air, it looked like some kind of liquid.
"Is that what we're looking for?" asked Chaos.
"I think so," Sam answered.
Sam floated back across the water to Chaos.
"There's no way to be sure this will take us where we want to go, but once I work out the loophole there's not much chance for turning back," Sam warned.
"So what you're saying is that I have to trust that your guess is correct," Chaos said.
"What I'm saying is that if I'm wrong we could be in trouble," Sam said.
"How often are you wrong?" asked Chaos.
"Not often," Sam said.
"Good, then let's go," Chaos said.
"Give me a minute or two to work things out," Sam said and headed back toward the portal.
Vincent changed back into his old self and looked around while Sam did what he had to do. He wondered to himself what possible hell they could be thrown into if Sam messed up and actually took them to the wrong place.
Even if the portal was right, trying to sneak in without the key might hold consequences Sam wasn't even aware of.
The man was confident enough, and he was a Cetra after all. If there were ever a group of people who could claim to know it all it was them.
"Alright, tall dark and shady, over here," Sam said.
Vincent jumped across to the altar and stood beside Sam facing the portal.
"Long story short I'm going to use the fact you're from Centre Time to…I guess you could say trick the portal into thinking for a moment that I might have the key. It won't unlock in the literal sense but I can use that window of time to get us through."
Vincent nodded.
"All you have to do is stand there and hope I can do it right," Sam said smiling, "if you're religious in any way now would be the time to start praying."
§
Feardorcha stood on the bridge of his airship and watched as Outcasts ran around reconstructing the entire front of the vessel. They had landed at a deserted area and began repairs, the ship could still operate, but it did have a large hole in the front of it after all.
"Sir, there's a report from General Foret," an Outcast said to Fear.
"Does he have the artifact?" asked Fear.
"No, sir, it appears the Outcast traitor and another person made away with the Peacemaker," the Outcast reported.
Fear slammed his fist on the control console of his ship, "Tell Foret to get back to the Resurrection at once!"
"He has something else, sir," the Outcast said.
"What is it?" asked Fear.
"He says he may have come across a way to get inside Centre Time, sir," the Outcast said.
Fear looked at the Outcast in surprise, "He found the key?"
"I don't think so, sir, he mentioned something called the Ancient Black, apparently he's uncovered a way to use it to get into Centre Time."
"I know of the Ancient Black already, the creature's being unleashed is my doing, what does it have to do with Centre Time?"
"He says he's found a way to follow its path through existences, and seeing as the creature is unleashed only in Centre Time…"
"Yes, of course," Fear muttered, "as I said, tell Foret to come to my ship at once."
"Yes, sir," the Outcast was gone.
"Well done, General," Fear said, "it appears I won't have to kill you after all."
"Sir, the Cetra has disappeared," said an Outcast at one of the ship's control panels.
"What?" asked Fear standing up.
"I don't understand, sir, I was tracking him a second ago. He was still back at the black building we attempted an attack on, now he's gone."
"What about the others?" asked Fear.
The Outcast hit a few buttons, "The other Cetra…the people she was with…all gone, sir."
"Gast must have used the building," Fear muttered angrily. "Tell Mardra to get up to the bridge right now. They've used the machine to go to the power source of the buildings; if we let them destroy it then the Ancient Black won't be able to come through into Centre Time."
"Can't you just redirect them to another existence like you did last time, sir?" asked the Outcast.
Fear shook his head, "I was prepared for the building being used last time so I sent them into the past. I hadn't expected them to meet Samael or expected them to be able to use the machine again. It appears blocking them out is no longer an option."
"I'll get Mardra, sir," the Outcast said standing up and leaving the bridge.
"Now all I have to do is get to Centre Time and get the artifacts back," Fear muttered, "and I can let Mardra get the bastard who killed my brother, after I'm done with him I can kill him myself."
Charna entered the bridge and walked up to Fear, "Fear, we have another report of an artifact, what of the gun?"
"Samael got the Peacemaker," Fear said.
"Damn it," Charna muttered.
"I want someone to find out where he is right now, he is possibly our biggest threat," Fear said.
"I'll find him," Charna said turning to leave.
"No, once Foret gets here let him do it," Fear ordered.
"Why?" asked Charna.
"Because I'm not entirely sure you can kill him, dear," Fear said, "Foret was only his friend, he has no such connection with Samael as you do."
"The past affects nothing, Fear," Charna retorted, "what happened between Samael and I is forgotten. Foret isn't here; I can find Sam much quicker."
Fear shook his head, "If you really want to then go with Foret once he gets here, I'm not sending you alone."
"Why don't you trust me, Fear, you know I'm better than him," Charna said.
"No, Charna, it's not that I don't trust you," Fear said, "it's that I'm not sure you'll survive."
"I just said I could defeat him," Charna argued.
"I don't think it's Sam you should be worried about," Foret said walking on the bridge with some of his remaining men, "it's Vincent Valentine that could be your downfall."