A/N: Ok, so last chapter I was supposed to include Furuba. I was going to have Akito accompany Sephiroth and also be working for Beckie, but I changed my mind at the last second because Akito isn't technically a villain (I think he is! Poor Hatori!) Not to worry, Furuba will get in here soon enough, along with Kuraudo-san (Cloud).
Inwë stalked out of Jones' cabin feeling only slightly comforted. The captain had agreed not to attack them, but he could give no guarantees about Beckett not finding out about it. Sephiroth's sudden appearance had made everything more complicated. The Elf shot said villain a look as she passed him and went to stand with her friends. Amaya was no longer looking murderous, though she was paler than usual. Jones limped on deck shortly afterwards.
"You may go-ah. For now we have more important matters to attend to, so be on your way," he growled. Sephiroth turned his head slightly to glance at the captain, who scowled and busied himself with ordering the anchor to be raised. The authoress and her crew quietly slipped back to their ship. It wasn't until after the Dutchman's sails were far away that they relaxed and began talking about things.
"Sephiroth working for Beckett? How is that possible?" Aki asked no one in particular.
"He's way better than Beckett! He could take the authoress powers himself if he wanted!" Sakura agreed. The color drained from Inwë's face.
"I prefer Beckett having the powers to Sephiroth having them. At least Beckett is mostly sane," Amaya murmured as she stood at the prow and watched the rain clouds roll away as the Flying Dutchman vanished on the horizon. Sirius whined.
"Sephiroth is clever, even if he is a madman. He has no intention of sitting quietly by while Beckett pulls the strings and decides the fates of the realms," Shaedan agreed grimly. Norrington, who was rather overwhelmed by the conversation, steered the ship mutely. Inwë also remained silent, lost in her own thoughts.
"There's one thing I don't understand," Raven said. Everyone jumped.
"What's that?" Inwë asked when she had recovered. Raven stood up and started walked around the group in a large circle, her blue cloak billowing in the wind.
"If the Mouth of Sauron is subconsciously controlling your powers, why would he summon Sephiroth? That just means more competition for him, and you told me once there was nothing he feared more than someone taking his throne. That, and he's never even heard of Final Fantasy. How can he subconsciously summon something he's never even heard of?" There were murmurs of agreement. Inwë bit her lip as an idea came to her.
"What if…what if the dark magic itself is consciously controlling my powers? More than one villain uses black magic of that kind. Maybe all the magic is connected, and so it learns about all kinds of villains."
"There aren't any dark magic users in Final Fantasy VII," Aki pointed out. Amaya and Inwë exchanged glances.
"Yes there is. The Black Materia, Meteor, which I keep reading about. Sephiroth used it to try to destroy the planet, but Aerith's White Materia, Holy, stopped it," Amaya explained solemnly. A heavy silence descended upon the group.
"But…but Meteor was destroyed. The black magic shouldn't be connected to Sephiroth anymore," Sakura argued desperately.
"Energy can be neither created nor destroyed," Raven said quietly, "The magic is still there, but it cannot be used. It must have been what summoned him here."
"What can we do to get rid of him?" Norrington inquired. Inwë sighed deeply.
"Not much. If we get my powers back I should be able to banish him back to the Void, but until then…we may have more problems than we bargained for." The Commodore looked alarmed at this notion.
"Like what? Unlucky coincidences?"
"We don't believe in coincidences," Raven and Inwë responded simultaneously. Aki and Shaedan stifled laughs. Amaya sighed, bowing her head in thought. Suddenly, she snatched up the telescope Norrington had left lying on a barrel. She looked through it for several moments before a grin lit up her face.
"LAND HO!" she yelled enthusiastically. Aki and Inwë fell off the barrels they were sitting on and landed in a heap on the deck. Dazed, they sat up and glared at the eldest ranger-gypsy-pirate.
"Don't DO that!" Aki snapped as she pulled herself to her feet, using Inwë's shoulder to push herself up. The Elf got up and waltzed after her friends, who were huddling next to Amaya and taking turns with the telescope. Sure enough, a land mass was emerging in the horizon. It was far too large to be an island.
"Camelot!" Shaedan exclaimed with awestruck reverence.
"Camelot!" Aki repeated with a grin and a fan girl shriek (not to be confused with a Nazgûl shriek). Sakura crossed her arms sullenly.
"It's only a model." Inwë shushed her and rubbed her hands together joyfully.
"Knights, I bid you welcome to your new home. Onward…to Camelot!" The five friends began on a lively jig.
"We're Knights of the Round Table!" Amaya sang. They all paused.
"Are we? I thought we were ranger-gypsy-pirates that answer only to God and whomever we feel loyal to," Aki pointed out sadly.
"I dunno the lyrics for that song, and we don't have a cat to step on or guys with helmets to hit," Shaedan agreed. Norrington, Raven, and Sirius stared at each other uneasily.
"On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place," Inwë said musingly. The crew all answered "Aye" in varying degrees of dejectedness. Norrington coughed loudly.
"I don't think this is Camelot, and wouldn't you all prefer to be on land once Beckett finds out we're here and sends Jones after us?" he asked loudly. The girls paled.
"Right. All hands to the boats!" Inwë commanded swiftly. She paused and glanced at the Commodore, "Apologies. You give the orders." She bowed out of the way and went back to stand with her friends. Norrington sizzled slightly. If he ever got his hands on Jack Sparrow – sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow – he was going to hang him just for having so many accursed quotable lines. He soon realized he was supposed to be giving out orders. The crew stared at him expectantly and waited for him to speak.
"All right. We have to get to shore by nightfall, which is perhaps six or seven hours away. We also should not spend the night on the beach in case there are unfriendly inhabitants on the continent. Therefore, we are going to have to work hard to get to land and still have time to cover lots of ground."
"Aye, aye, sir!" the group chorused. Norrington smiled to himself. It had been a long time since he had an obedient gang of sailors to command.
"The ship is going as fast as the wind permits. We will reach land in four hours. In the meantime, I want you all to gather as many supplies as you can carry and put them in your packs. Do not bother with water or anything that will spoil in the heat. Now get to it!" There was a commotion as the teenagers pelted down to their hammocks to secure their most valuable items: pens, notebooks (one of which doubled as ship's log), Furuba, and their respective costumes. Aki grudgingly left the katana in a corner, lamenting that she had no sheath to carry it in or anything to sharpen it with. The stores were easy enough to organize, as most of it was salted pork and potatoes. Shaedan insisted on bringing several pots slung over her shoulder. She looked a lot like a tall, skinny Samwise. Fully packed and excited to explore new lands, the group waited restlessly on deck as the ship inched closer to the continent. That sparked a conversation about what they would call it. An argument broke out, and it was finally agreed that whoever set foot on the beach first would name it. They all sulked tensely as Norrington went around tallying supplies and making a note of it in the ship's log, which Aki and Inwë had loaned him for the task.
After what felt like an eternity, the group was rowing towards the shore with light hearts. Despite all the obvious setbacks of leaving behind their first and probably only ship, the teenagers were especially excited. All their short and relatively random lives they had dreamed of wandering the wilderness as rangers. Now they could finally do so.
"Hey! There's someone on the beach!" Aki shouted, shattering Inwë's line of thought. Startled and more than a little scared, the authoress whipped her head around. Sure enough, a dark figure was just visible against the white sand.
"Amaya, hand me the telescope," Shaedan asked. Her sister shook her head.
"No need. I spotted him a while ago while you three were still moaning over leaving the ship. He's a friend," she replied casually. Burning with curiosity, the others squinted at the man and rowed even faster. They were not the types to wait patiently while a mystery was at hand. Inwë did her best not to glance constantly over her shoulder to see if she could get a better look at the stranger. She felt odd, like she ought to know who was waiting for them.
"Say, this means that this guy will get to name the continent," Aki whined.
"Don't worry about it," Amaya sighed in a slightly bored tone, "I don't think he'll object to letting one of you name it." That led to some last minute haggling in which Sakura was completely excluded because she was in the other boat with Raven, Norrington, and Sirius. After a while the girls were too hyper to argue any more.
"Amaya-san…this guy waiting for us…is he someone we know?" Shaedan inquired slyly. Amaya grinned but didn't say anything. Inwë tapped her foot impatiently against the side of the boat.
"Amaya-san, you are decidedly annoying at times," the Elf growled. The other teen shrugged loftily.
"Once upon a time…you were too," she murmured. Something clicked in the authoress' mind and her eyes widened briefly. She had no time to question her friend further, or to relay her theories to the others, because just then they pulled up to the beach. Dragging the boat as far onto the sand as they could, the girls stopped and sat down on the ground panting. Inwë looked around expectantly for the mysterious man who was waiting for them. Her friends did the same, even Amaya. They all stopped short when they finally spotteded him. Sitting quietly in the sun, his sword by his side, sat a young man with spiky flaxen hair and blue-green eyes. He dressed all in black, with Doc Martins and cargo pants and a one-sleeved long black coat. At Inwë's surprised and delighted cry, he looked up with the ghost of a smile. Aki, Shaedan, Amaya, Inwë, Sakura, and Raven all bowed.
"Kuraudo-san. I did not expect to see you here," Inwë said respectfully when she straightened up. Norrington and Sirius both looked confused.
"Elf, who is your friend?" the Commodore asked nervously. Smiling, the authoress glanced at him.
"My friend? His name is Cloud Strife. And I have no idea what he's doing here," she added, turning to Cloud with a questioning look, "Well?"
"We came to help," said a new voice. The teens whirled and Inwë let out a fan girl squeal. Another man, this one with dark shaggy hair, was eyeing them from the tree line.
"HATORI-SAN!" Shaedan, Aki, and Inwë screamed, starting to run towards him. They paused uncertainly after a few feet.
"We can't tackle him! He'll change!" Aki whimpered. Inwë made a whining noise.
"But we're right next to the ocean! If he changes we can just chuck him in, can't we?" Scandalized looks from her mates told her that wasn't an option.
"Right…ok, I'll settle for an explanation. Unless there are more people with you that we don't known about?" Hatori and Cloud exchanged glances. Cloud looked about to speak when there was an angry yell and two teenage boys, one red-headed and one with silver hair, burst out of the trees. The redhead took a swing at the silver haired boy, who dodged easily.
"Really, your feeble attacks are getting to be annoying," the silver haired teen remarked with a sigh as he dodged again. The redhead was looking murderous.
"I'm going to beat you this time, you damn rat!" he snapped in reply. They stopped fighting when they saw the assembled group.
"Oh…hello," the redhead said awkwardly.
"KYO-SAN! YUKI-SAN!" the teenagers (minus Raven) chorused with renewed fan girl squeals. Kyo, the redhead, backed up a pace, and Yuki paled.
"Hey, pretty-boy, it looks like your fan club followed us here," Kyo taunted. Shaedan and Aki glowered at him.
"We are fans of Furuba, not Yuki-san!" Aki snarled venomously. Norrington and Hatori were both laughing quietly. Cloud just rolled his eyes and got up.
"Yuki, where's Vincent? He should have been back by now," the warrior commented musingly. Amaya's face lit up.
"Vincent? Vincent's here?" she all but chattered. The sudden arrival of so many anime and manga characters made for a hyper atmosphere. Cloud nodded.
"It's about time. Sephiroth could be here within an hour," another voice, this one low, murmured from the shadows. A man with pale skin, dark hair like Hatori's, and a blood red cloak stepped forward. The girls repeated their act of bowing respectfully.
"This is all of you, then?" Inwë asked hopefully. She was overwhelmed as it was and didn't want any more surprise entrances.
"No," Cloud replied softly, "Reno and Rude got here a few days before us. They've been scouting around the continent, looking for Sephiroth. We'll probably run into them before long." The warrior's eyes held a wistful look. Inwë suspected that he wanted to be out hunting Sephiroth too, and she could hardly blame him. Cloud's life had been all but destroyed because of Sephiroth's madness.
"We can't stand around talking," Vincent muttered, arms crossed. He looked a bit annoyed. Norrington immediately started handing people their bags. The girls were now mostly recovered from the worst of the hyperness – though it was unlikely that they'd stop grinning for another few hours – and were sane enough to put on their backpacks with minimal giggling. Yuki and Kyo were enlisted to drag the boats into the forest. Hatori and Norrington, in the meantime, struck up a lively conversation. They seemed glad to have found another sane human in the circus that was fan fiction.
A/N: Wow that was a long chapter! I kept telling myself "Stop writing now, it's way too long!" but my muse got the better of me. I couldn't find a good place to stop anyway.