Sora looked at the map of Traverse Town laid out on the table in front of them all; he wondered how they were supposed to get inside of it considering the walls surrounding the town proper were apparently a hundred feet high and twenty feet thick.

"Trust me," Cid muttered. "There isn't a way to assault Traverse with traditional methods from outside of the walls. The only reason that bastard took it so easily was because he came up beneath it."

"Then how do you propose we get the bearers there Cid? After all this is the only place we know of that may have access to the heart. We don't have many options."

Maleficent's comment struck home with all assembled, the last battle had been won but the casualty rate had been high. No one doubted that in a war of attrition Xehanort would eventually win no matter how superior the tactics used by the kingdom's forces; hence why something as ludicrous as attacking Xehanort at Traverse Town was being considered.

Sora kept looking over the map, frowning as the adults debated and bickered. He frowned as he recalled that Maleficent and Merlin could fly.

"Could we fly in?"

Maleficent snorted. "How do you propose we do that boy? You can hardly grow wings and flutter in over the walls."

Merlin considered. "Well I could change the bearers into birds certainly, but I'd have to be there to—"

"Pinfeathers," Archimedes screeched from atop Merlin's hat. "They wouldn't know the first thing about flying even if you did change them into birds."

Mim nodded quietly; in light of her pardon she'd been added to Ansem's inner circle. "As much as I dislike old feather brain," Archimedes puffed up indignantly. "He's right, we'd have to teach the children how to fly, and even then there would be no guarantee that the Heartless wouldn't simply attack them in flight. After all they are drawn to the keyblades and their bearers."

Cid had been silent since the flight idea had been proposed, stewing in his own thoughts, he looked up now. "I might have an idea."

Maleficent eyed him condescendingly. "Not another of your mechanical contrivances. Remember how well your cannon worked?"

Cid glowered. "It worked fine until that giant showed up, and Merlin had to help you with that one woman."

Ansem sighed in exasperation, "enough both of you, Cid continue."

"I have this thing I've been working on…an airship I call it, it's a ship that sails through the air on gas and motorized propellers; anyways it could be used to fly us over the town, we'd need a way to get down of course without landing…and someone would have to fly interference for us. The gas is combustible."

Merlin snapped his fingers. "I believe I have just the thing! I call it a parachute; I designed it to allow controlled descent from high areas."

Ansem blinked slowly, and then began massaging his temples. "I don't know what is worse, that I'm hearing this from the two of you or that I'm actually considering it." He looked between the pair, steepling his fingers. "How likely is this to work?"

Paine stepped up. "The parachute works Majesty; I've tested one from the lip of the gorge."

Sephiroth blinked and looked at her in annoyance. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"Because I knew you'd object and wasn't in the mood to fight over something so trivial; besides Merlin needed a test subject other than himself, I had the time and it sounded fun."

Sephiroth glowered at Merlin who merely smiled benignly, Sora was getting the distinct feeling that Paine and Sephiroth's marriage was based partially on her ability to worry and irk him since she seemed to take enjoyment in doing just that.

Ansem sighed, "remind me in the future that when I assemble my advisors and generals I should make sure they're capable of behaving like adults in my presence." He stood. "So we have a means to get over Traverse, and a means to get into it. However I don't want the bearers to go in alone; Sephiroth one of your Elite squads should suffice."

"Sire I will not commit my people to this kind of farce." Sephiroth stated flatly.

"Oh you won't have to, I believe the boys' brothers make up half of one squad and the other half will probably want to go with them rather than let two of their squad-mates get themselves killed in this farce as you call it."

Sephiroth twitched, but nodded agreement not having anything that he could really say or do to prevent Cloud or Leon from going with their little brothers, especially when the King had essentially just given them permission.

"They're likely the best choices Majesty," he said deadpan. "That squad has a habit to tend towards recklessness regardless of orders, and they're some of our best fighters as well."

Laguna snorted, smiling, Sora had a feeling he knew why. Tifa was no doubt cause of much of the trouble. Knowing Laguna he was probably proud of that fact.

"So we have that settled, Cid you said the….airship," the King said the word as if it tasted strange. "Would need an escort of some kind to prevent damage?"

Cid nodded, Ansem turned towards Maleficent, Merlin, and Mim. "If you three wouldn't mind accompanying Cid's contraption, I presume you can assume a dragon form as easily as these two Madame Mim?"

Mim chuckled mischievously. "Oh mine is even better Sire."

Merlin continued to smile politely at this, while Maleficent simply sneered. Ansem looked around the assembled party with a long sigh. "I am not certain whose mind is gone at this point my friends. Ours for thinking this is going to work, or Xehanort for thinking he can stop us."

"Hey have a little faith your Majesty, I guarantee that my baby will fly!" Cid said confidently.

"Cid have you ever test flown this thing?" Laguna asked.

"Well…not like this no."

A few of the assembled laughed, others exchanged dubious glances, Sora simply grinned, brimming with excitement, besides him Roxas groaned.

"So let me get this straight, we're going to fly over Traverse Town in one of Cid's machines, an untested machine at that, whereupon we're jumping out of this untested machine using one of Merlin's tested machines into the middle of a Heartless infested town."

"Yep," Sora said cheerily as he ate.

Besides him Roxas lowered his head in embarrassment, Leon and Cloud exchanged looks before Tifa continued.

"And you expect us to come with you?"

"Well the King expected that Leon and Cloud wouldn't let us do this without them, and he thought that you and Zack would want to come as well since they'd be going."

"Do Kairi and Namine know about this?" Cloud asked.

Roxas nodded sourly. There was a pause before Leon spoke up.

"Do they approve?"

Roxas looked miserable. "Yes."

Leon burst out laughing, besides him Zack was grinning. "Aerith is going to kill me when I tell her about this."

"Not if the Heartless get you first Zack." Tifa supplied.

"Oh they've yet to throw anything at us that strong."

That brought more laughter from the table, accepting Roxas who still looked miserable.

"You're all insane."

Cloud smiled quietly. "What do you think Leon, do we tell Mother?"

"Are you kidding, Aunt Tara would be up here in a heartbeat with rope and chains to make sure we didn't do this."

"So we definitely tell Mother then." Cloud said and the pair exchanged amused grins, Sora couldn't help but grin himself, sometimes things never changed and it was a good thing.

"So you'll come with us?"

"Stupid question," Cloud said deadpan, taking a bite of his food.

"Of course we're going with you," said Zack. "How else do you expect to fight off all those Heartless, by yourselves?"

Roxas looked pleadingly at Tifa. "Please tell me you're against this."

She smiled gently at him, reaching over and ruffling his hair. "Sorry Roxas, but if the King says we're doing this we don't get much say in the matter. Besides it's either this or fighting another battle like before."

Roxas shuddered, Tifa nodded. "That's what I thought."

"So when do we leave?" Zack asked.

"The King said he'd summon us when Cid has his machine ready." Sora supplied.

"Oh good, that will give Aerith some time to beat my head around."

Leon snorted. "Zack you know she wouldn't hurt a fly."

"True, but I'm not a fly, I'm a boyfriend and she will hurt those."

As it turned out they did have a while to wait, it took a week for Cid to make sure his airship was actually capable of getting in the air and in that time Aerith spent every waking moment telling Zack what an idiot he was and every sleeping moment in his arms whispering how much she loved him, in the end he claimed that it evened out. Sora and Roxas for their parts spent much of their time with Namine and Kairi respectively though frequently all four of them went out together. There was little threat from Heartless with the Grace system guarding the city added to the fact that the new ones that Xehanort couldn't be controlled once transported meant that things were actually pretty quiet.

When they were finally summoned it was to a very odd place, a cavern beneath and behind the castle. It was part of a cave system that Cid had expanded upon to provide himself a mooring spot for his airship, and in typical Cid fashion he'd been very secretive about the entire affair until the time seemed right to reveal it.

"Okay Cid, how did you keep this a secret?" Laguna asked, looking up at the airship.

"Oh it wasn't that hard. How many people go looking for giant caves under the castle?"

Ansem sighed as he looked at the cavern around them. "Remind me to have this filled in once this is over. I don't need the headache of worrying that someone might blast this out during a siege and drop the entire bastion into the earth."

Maleficent rumbled from the mouth of the cave, her voice gravelly as the shimmering green eyes of her dragon form bore through them all.

"I feel it demeaning enough to escort this fool's machine, do not force me to suffer longer than necessary."

Besides her Merlin's dragon form basked lazily in the morning light, enjoying the rest before the long flight ahead. Closer to the airship a silvered purple dragon nuzzled its giant head against Namine and Kairi.

"You'll do fine girls," it crooned gently.

They hugged Mim's head, barely able to reach around her muzzle and she smiled, the motion revealing rows of razor sharp teeth.
"You'll do just fine; after all you have your knights with you." She said with a hint of amusement. She cast her steely gaze towards Roxas and Sora. "Bring them back to me boys; I couldn't stand to lose them."

Sora nodded, "we will, that's a promise!"

Roxas nodded agreement though he was much less enthusiastic, doubt still clawed at his mind; Mim eyed him in particular as she reared her head away from her granddaughters.

"For once boy, believe in something, whether it's yourself, your family, your friends…or the girl you love. Believe in something, it makes life so much easier."

With that she turned away, and joined the other two dragons. The trio spread their wings and leapt out of the cave mouth and vanished in the morning sunlight.

Riku came up besides the foursome. "Well let's go, if we're going to get ourselves killed might as well do it now."

They headed toward the lowered boarding ramp, and as they did so they passed another small gathering.

"You'd better come back in one piece you two." Laguna chided Cloud and Leon.

Leon nodded, holding Rinoa closely. "Don't worry old man; I've got more than enough reason to do that." He looked down at Rinoa, "here, for when I get back." Taking her hand he slid a small silver ring onto her finger, her eyes widened and she wordlessly threw her arms around him.

Laguna grunted his approval, turning to Cloud and Tifa eying the former with mock severity. "Well where's her ring?"

Tifa smiled at Cloud who looked thoroughly embarrassed that it hadn't occurred to him to do something like that.

She saved him from the trouble though, wrapping herself around his arm and kissing him on the cheek, he flushed bright red. "He's taking me on a dangerous mission, that's good enough."

Laguna snorted. "One of these days I'm going to wake up and realize I did something wrong with my first girl."

At the bottom of the boarding ramp Zack and Aerith stood quietly together, no one heard what they were saying but they were leaning very close together and whispering to one another. At the top of the ramp Cid stuck his head out and looked down.

"I ain't trying to run a love boat you know, lets get her in the air!"

Sora and Roxas hefted their packs, clambering the rest of the way up the ramp with Namine, Kairi, and Riku. The rest of their party came up behind them. They all followed Cid onto the spacious 'bridge'; everyone agreed that traditional ship nomenclature was easiest, Cid sat down in the captain's seat and began turning dials and flipping levers. There was a low rumble as the engines kicked in and the ship began to hum.

"Cid, I've been meaning to ask you." Zack said leaning over his shoulder. "What were you planning on using this thing for?"

He shrugged. "Cargo transport mostly, figured if we had a few of these things in the air running around the trade-lanes we could give our competitors a kick in the pants."

"Oh good, we're going into combat aboard a flying cargo hold." Zack said with a grin.

Cid returned the smile. "Aw have some faith boy, what do you think I spent this week doing? She ain't a cargo scow now, she's a fighting ship!"

The airship coughed and wheezed, then jumped as it lifted into the air. Cid guided her out into the morning light, to the left of the glass dome that wrapped the bridge, their three dragon escorts leapt into the air and flew alongside as the airship picked up speed and headed into the rising sun.