Disclaimer: I still don't own Final Fantasy.

I'm feeling low... (-siiigh-) So much stuff is up. I'm glad I have you guys, though! : ) Really and truly. Thanks for each and every review. : )

Oh... And this is the second-last chapter. Next chapter is the last.
On that note, haven't a single one of you guys noticed what I've done with the chapter titles? (If you need a hint: The first letter of each chapter title... Even though a letter is still missing...)

Pulling Legs

How many hours had she been in this stuffy room in this messy helicopter, listening to its headache-inducing engine noise?

Logically speaking, maybe ten hours? Fifteen? But for Paige, logically speaking wasn't good enough. Felt more like fifteen days. By now, she had stopped fretting and making grimaces and shouting that she was innocent, and had instead put on a mask of stone cold iciness. At least that was what she told herself. Although she would never admit it, she probably looked more constipated than icy, since it had been extremely long since her last visit to the bathroom. She didn't dare to say that to Tsung, or Reno, or any of the others, though, out of fear it would sound like an excuse. And maybe it was. After all, she was sitting (against her will) in a dark and small cupboard-like room, with some rags for a door. Or maybe they weren't rags, but leather coats or old uniforms—there were a few of those in heaps on the floor as well, and on pegs on the wall. If that weren't enough, the helicopter rotor roared without stop as if its life depended on it.

Despite that, however, she could hear the others talk. If only barely.

"I still can't believe she did that," said a man, his voice tight with anger.

"Just get over it," replied another. "Shinra'll give us all new materia. Right, Reno?"

"… I wouldn't get my hopes up, if I were you," answered the red-head, his voice a little lazy, or perhaps careless? "You'll get a discount in the shops managed by Shinra. At best."

Despite herself, Paige smirked a bit. They'd had this conversation over and over again. Apparently, that ninja woman who had tried to save her earlier had managed to steal materia from some of these guys. Paige's amusement didn't last for long, though.

"Hojo!" screamed John Smoth. From the fragments of conversation she'd listened to so far, Tsung—or Tseng—speculated that John Smoth had been used in a past experiment made by Hojo. Maybe that was why they'd brought him with them. To take him back to that person. What a sick man. If she ever met him, she'd punch him, no matter how dangerous he looked. Even if he stood six and a half feet tall and had shoulders like a bull, and laser eyes, and white Einstein hair and eyebrows grown together in the middle, she'd punch him.

It was with a thrill Sephiroth felt air rush past his ears again, as he flew onwards with the Masamune in his left hand, and a borrowed cellphone in the other.

For what seemed the longest time, Sephiroth had waited for the President of the United States to contact Canada and get a string of formalities in order. Of course, Sephiroth could have gone straight to the ones in power in Canada in the first place—the problem was that nobody there would have trusted him to the degree the US President did. After all, Sephiroth had saved his life on one occasion, although that had been on the whim of Pai-... Of that woman. As such, the President owed him, and would 'pay back' under the pretense of the greater good: to kill off the fiends roaming about in the north—in other words, in Canada. Which was why he was currently leading the way for a swarm of choppers with special forces in them, sent with him by the US President.

While they would handle the fiends (and contact Sephiroth on his borrowed cellphone for advice against the more troublesome monsters), Sephiroth would take care of Shinra's human employees on his own, and he would do so with great satisfaction.

Or so he thought, until they arrived.

All along the Columbia river, helicopters had detached themselves from the main group, to take care of fiends. The rest followed Sephiroth to the place where it was worst—the once idyllic town made up of small hamlets and homes, one of which housed that woman. Here and there, small buildings were broken, and parts of the forest were burnt. Bulky fiends surrounded some houses—a few of which seemed to have people in them. There was even a car, racing down the road past them, with a couple of beasts chasing it. Sephiroth absently took notice that one of the helicopters left the group to take care of it. Further on, on a balcony, a small family seemed to be trapped—perhaps there was a monster inside their house—and one of them waved his arms when the helicopters passed overhead. Before long, Sephiroth landed in a newly cut hayfield, followed by most of the helicopters. A few continued past, so as to cover more of the area. Now that all the helicopters were there, it wouldn't be long before planes arrived to drop off soldiers in parachutes. Already, fiends were lurking under the cover of trees around their landing field.

But Sephiroth could pay no notice, because so far, he had not seen one Soldier, or even one employee, of Shinra's.

"What the fawk's goin' on?" John Smoth squawked, squirming uselessly in the grip on the infrantryman that held him. Some of the others laughed a bit—John Smoth had proved himself worthy of attention. He kept the others entertained.

"I got my eye on ya."

And they laughed again, louder this time. John Smoth took it badly.

"Disrespect hip-hop, and I'll spit in your face!" And then he made a spitting noise that sounded awfully real, even though it wasn't, and set the others off laughing again. In her dark room, Paige felt ignored and rejected (for which she mentally slapped herself). She hadn't slept for a looong time. After yesterday's revelation about her "leukemia" (was it really only yesterday?), she hadn't been able to sleep at all. And then there was Sephiroth, the elf-like, silver-haired, jade-eyed man who had left her without a word. Paige felt her eyebrows twitch.

And even so, she couldn't help but wonder what he'd say, or do, when he found out where she was.

If he ever did.

People were calling him from all directions.

Some asked how to defeat a large bear-like fiend with brutish strength, others asked which weapons were most effective against a fast, airborne fiend, one requested reinforcements against a beast using lightning magic, and others again claimed that they had encountered a monster whose appearance made it sound to Sephiroth like it was a summon. Even without his cellphone, he could hear people call for help or assistance, hear fiends roar and military forces opening fire.

Frankly, he could not care less.

For some reason, Shinra had left the area without bringing the monsters with them. Why? Was it not their motive to capture him and bring him back? Of course, Sephiroth was planning to head to Shinra's hidden headquarters in the end—regardless of the danger. He would lay waste to all that had to do with Shinra, and leave it in ruins beyond repair, littered with the filth that was the remains of his past superiors. And there really was only one way the Shinra employees could have gone: in the direction of the Shinra HQ. From where he was now, the shortest way was north-west through Alaska and over the North Pacific Ocean—and onwards into Russia.

Sephiroth walked forward, observing a group of men fighting a dragon-like fiend with some distress. As he came closer, he increased his speed and strode, then sprung into the air and raised his Masamune. Not a moment later he brought it down upon the creature and killed it. Not stopping, Sephiroth flew on, his trail hidden by the pyreflies that escaped the bleeding body of the creature.

From now on, the special forces would have to manage on their own.

Sephiroth would not waste another second here that could be spent wreaking havoc on Shinra.

A dozen bazillion hours had passed.

Paige was hallucinating now, hallucinating about toilets, one shinier and brighter than the other. A seat of white gold with diamonds and pearls for decoration. And the more she hallucinated, the angrier she got, and the angrier she got, the harder her mask turned, and the harder her mask turned, the more constipated she looked. She probably appeared very fierce at the moment. Just where in the world were they going? When would they get there? Why did they even bring her, anyway? Just because John Smoth had the brains to say "Hojo" in front of them?

"Tseng!" called one the men from outside her little, dark room, his voice urgent. "Chief! Our helicopters are being followed!" It was only through an abnormally powerful effort of extreme concentration that Paige managed to ignore the images in her head, which showed her military-ish toilets with rotors being chased by an even more hostile-looking, enormous toilet. Gritting her teeth, she tried to listen in. She'd already lost out on a bit of conversation.

"-to keep away, and to move as fast as possible," said Tseng. Or Tsung. "Spread out as well. That will delay him. I will call the headquarters and warn them."

Silence ensued for some seconds. Maybe he was on the phone.

"If that is the case, use summons." Tseng seemed as calm and businesslike as ever. She was pretty sure the phrase "Listen to me, since I am calm and you are not," was written all over his face, and his suit was probably still so flawless it spelled "Dare to refuse orders and I will terminate you without even dirtying myself."

Anyway, if Paige had understood correctly, they were being followed.

Meanwhile, far away, yet coming closer, Sephiroth had found yet another of Shinra's helicopters.

So far he had cut down three of them, and watched as each plummeted down towards the ground, out of the labyrith of clouds that had gathered in his path. Although he had not seen any of them crash into the ground, he was certain that the people inside were dead—unless, of course, they had parachutes. A rather vexed part of him admitted that that was most likely the case, but he ignored it and went on, his sword ready for the next aircraft—be it a helicopter or an airplane.

The next came from nowhere, out of the wall of a cloud on the left, the only warning of its arrival the noise it made.

Sephiroth slashed it off right below the rotor and flew ahead without looking back. As he turned around the next giant of a cloud, several helicopters appeared at once—all with their sides turned to him, with open doors and people standing in them. He recognized many of them as Soldiers. In their hands were glowing red materia.

Summon materia, then.

"Insects," he muttered under his breath at them.

In a clash of colors and light, the summoned beasts came forth, one after another, all turned to him with weapons raised, jaws open and eyes glowing.

"Insects..." he muttered again, as he raised the Masamune with deliberate slowness, watching as the summoned Odin, astride his many-legged horse, rode towards him in the air. Putting strength behind his sword, Sephiroth slashed them—cleaved them—before they could attempt anything similar against him. Next came a surge of chilly wind as Shiva charged, her cold figure shrouded by glowing ice, her face devoid of expression as she raised her hand and sent her elemental spells at him.

At that, Sephiroth let flow his energy and sent a Fire spell in return. The ice melted, but Shiva remained. Before he could take care of her, Sephiroth cast a magic barrier around himself—to protect him from the increasingly strong electricity that was starting to trickle along the currents of wind. Below, appearing to stand in the clouds, old Ramuh stood with his cane raised, his white beard billowing and his ancient face serious as he pulled forth his Lightning magic. Seeing that other summons approached—Bahamuts, judging from their dragon-like appearance—Sephiroth swooped down and slashed at the old man, once, twice-

And the Lightning element summon closed his eyes with a grimace around his eyes, and dissipated in a mass of pyreflies, like Odin and his horse had done moments before.

But just as Sephiroth turned back to take care of Shiva, he was blinded as one of the Bahamuts spewed a torrent of non-elemental magic at him.

"Tsch-"

Scowling darkly, with his eyes half closed so as not to expose himself to the bright magic, Sephiroth charged straight into the attack and flew towards the Bahamut expelling it. The beast's attack came to a very abrupt end as Sephiroth gave it an uppercut that severed its neck and head. Before giving in to death, it gave a rattling roar and disappeared into a swarm of glowing pyreflies. By then, Sephiroth was heading for Shiva, the Ice summon. Before her spell was ready, he cleanly decapitated her and rushed towards the remaining two Bahamuts.

On his way, with a flick of his Masamune, he sent a lingering helicopter plummeting to the ground.

Paige was in no condition to think clearly.

She was dead tired to the point of almost fainting, she needed to go to the washroom, she was stressed, she needed to go to the washroom, and she needed to go to the washroom. And her wrists were sore from the handcuffs. At best, the rushed voices of the other men in the helicopter became a slur that she only barely understood as "We're being followed." Apart from that, her ears caught single words like "summons", "parachutes", "hurry" and an occasional (and familiar) "Hojo!"

When the helicopter engines finally went off, it felt strange—as if something that had always been there just suddenly disappeared. Perhaps a little like living next to an airport for a half a lifetime, only to wake up one day and not hear a single airplane. Then, before she could do anything on her own, she was hauled out of the aircraft and into deep, freezing snow (to her great confusion). Then she was pulled along, her feet dragging in the blinding white snow (with the guy named Reno on one side and the bald man with sunglasses on the other). She probably didn't look to good, because Reno waved his hand in front of her eyes a few times, then lazily remarked that she looked like she had a hangover. Paige was still about to fall asleep on the spot, though, so she kept quiet and concentrated on staying awake. Even though his words annoyed her.

Then something amazing happened.

Something so amazing that it was just amazingly amazing.

They stopped in front of a white door with a minimalistic-looking lady on it—a women's restroom. The women's restroom. The Ladies' Room.
And she was allowed to go in.

Sephiroth raged—around him, flames seared through the now cloud-free air and carried to the summons.

They were all around him. More had come after he defeated the first ones. Several Odins astride many-legged chargers, a number of muttering Lightning wizards by the name of Ramuh, a diverse group of Bahamuts, and finally—to Sephiroth's frustration and vexation—a Knights of Round summon. Some attacked alone with long-distance magic, others charged at him together. Spells had singed him and one of the faster summons had managed to barrel into him once already. The Knights of Round had proven themselves particularly difficult and evasive. That only added to his rage.

Despite the summons and the attempts they made to take him down, however, Sephiroth kept moving forward, more set than ever to destroy Shinra and leave nothing but ruins in his wake.

When Paige was done in the bathroom, she felt so invincible she considered escaping through the window in there, but thought better of it. After all, John Smoth was still with the others. Besides, there were guards with guns around. To add to that, there were cameras all over, and she was still wearing those stupid handcuffs. And outside it was so cold she would freeze before she got past the gates.

In other words, all she had to do was free John Smoth and find the keys to her handcuffs, borrow a helmet, a weapon and a warm and bulletproof jacket, then threaten her way out of here.

With her karate skills, she could-

"Hojo!" screeched John Smoth as she got out of the ladies' room. By the looks of it, the infantryman holding him was having some problems. He was holding John Smoth by his legs, while the parrot flapped its wings like crazy. Paige clenched her teeth.

Chance.

Now or never...?

"GAAH!" Paige shouted at the top of her lungs, so loud she was almost embarrassed, but it worked as she hoped it would: the infantryman holding John Smoth was so surprised he let go of the bird. John Smoth flew out of the way. Paige remained where she was and grinned contently, until the suit-clad guy with red hair stepped in front of her, his head tilted, a discontent smirk on his face. With his shadow falling on her like that, she felt a little helpless, so she defended herself with the only thing she knew how to use: her mask. Only instead of turning blank (or constipated, for that matter), she made sure she looked as deadly serious as possible (or actually as Sephiroth-ish as possible, but she wouldn't tell anyone that). In her peripheral vision, she saw John Smoth jumping around a corner while flapping his wings (he never was too much of a marathon flier, after all). The parrot muttered "P-P-P-Po, P-P-P-Poker face, P-P-P-Po-" while getting away. But that didn't steal the attention of Reno-the-ponytail-guy.

"What was that all about?" he asked in an annoyed voice, nodding his head to the infantryman who had held John Smoth until now, while pointing at her with a dangerous-looking iron baton.

"... I just remembered something." Her words came out as monotonous mumbles.

"Ha?" he replied, not convinced.

"You-"

Wait a minute.

Paige looked over at the frowned, displeased infantryman (who hadn't chased after John Smoth, for reasons unknown), then glanced around briefly. Apart from Reno and the infantryman, there wasn't a person to be seen. Had the others left?

Chance! Again!

Doing her best to maintain her cold mask, Paige continued.

"You still have my cellphone," she said in a deathly mutter, and reached her open hands out.

And so...

Karate skills, come to me! And after a second of hesitation: Please!

Just as she had expected, Reno didn't hand her cellphone over (Tseng probably still had it). Instead, he reached out to grab her by the handcuffs. And so, with both her hands, Paige grabbed his fingers and curled them upwards in the wrong direction, quickly forcing him to kneel not to break his fingers.

"Wha-"

And then a swift roundhouse kick to his head rendered him immobilized—at least for the moment. His baton fell, too, and spun on the floor over to her feet.

Another chance!

High on luck (and gratefulness that her karate skills had come to her at last), Paige quickly picked up the small weapon and faced the infantryman. He had a rather enormously huge and scary looking knife in hand, or perhaps it was a machete, or a short sword. Paige clutched the baton tight, but then a spark came out of it, and she reflexively dropped it to the floor. Just as she was about to stoop down and get it, she saw the Rambo-ish knife in the corner of an eye and did the only thing she could think of doing: she kicked him in in the jewels. And so, he dropped the knife and fell on his knees, clutching his jewels with a fearsomely pained expression on his face. If she got back home safely, she had her karate teacher to thank for it.

Anyway, now she had two weapons-

"Hey, you little woman," said a voice. When she looked over her shoulder, the red-haired one was on his feet again, dusting his suit nonchalantly. Hurriedly, she picked up the knife and the mysterious spark-baton and faced the pro.

Her confidence was suddenly flatter than a flatfish, or a pancake, or a popped balloon. Because even though she had one weapon in each hand, she still had those handcuffs on. And she didn't know how to use the baton, and she didn't really want to stab anybody with a knife. To make matters worse, this Reno-person was holding one arm out towards her, and it was glowing—glowing the same way Sephiroth's hands did back when he showed her magic. And he was standing way too far away for her to use her small array of karate techniques. No, even if she were right next to him, he was probably better at martial arts than her.

Just how was she supposed to defeat this guy?

This Reno guy was definitely closer to Sephiroth in strength than her. And to put it bluntly, Paige could use a chainsaw, and Sephiroth could use a toothpick, and he'd still turn her into human sushi before John Smoth could say "Yo." She was done for.

"Okay," she said, trying to be as calm as her mask-dominated face looked. "All right..." But her voice was thin, and uncertain.

"Something the matter?" asked Reno, flashing a smirk. This was his win, and the look on his face told her he knew it. "If you don't think you'll win, you might as well just give up," he continued. "Less pain that way."

Do something!

Paige swallowed. By now, only her face was calm. The rest of her was in turmoil. And she was still dead tired from lack of sleep. Her hand tightened around the hilt of the knife, and around the baton—and there, on the baton, was a button, and even though she barely touched it, a spark lit the air for a split second.

An electrical baton? Like one of those... stun... things? The kind of weapon the police used sometimes?

"Forget it," said Reno, and sparks started revolving around his arm as he readied to cast a spell—a lightning spell, by the looks of it.

Driven by fear rather than brains, Paige hurled her big knife at him and watched as his Lightning attack unwillingly went for the knife instead—and then the magic followed the knife as it whizzed past Reno. Bright flashes surrounded the weapon as it landed on the floor, then the sparks slowly died. Still watching her, Reno took some quick steps backwards and picked up the knife.

"Ah-" she hear herself utter.

Then she whirled around and ran as fast as she could (with the handcuffs still on, and Reno's stun baton still in hand). She sprinted as if her life depended on it. If he charged that knife with electricity and used it against her, she would be roast beef before she could even point her baton in his general direction.

"Gah!" Paige took a right turn in a long hallway only to end up in a large hall. There were staircases on the left and right sides, and doors and red carpets all over the place. Not knowing what else to do, she went for the closest stairs and charged up them-

Then bright lights were all over the place and she felt tingling stings prickle throughout her body. Paige shut her eyes tight and stopped climbing the stairs. Then the stinging sensation came to an end.

"... Huh?" she muttered under her breath, looking down at er hands. Was that a spell? It didn't exactly hurt too much. At all.

Then...

"Get down here quietly," Reno warned from the base of the stairs. "Or I won't hold back."

Then...

Then, the stun baton deflected lightning magic? This Reno guy probably knew that already. Maybe he thought she didn't know, or wouldn't find out. But wait a minute, she wasn't supposed to know about magic in the first place, right? On the way here, she had claimed she had no idea who Sephiroth was, after all.

"What was that?" she asked, breathless, feigning fear and awe as she glanced over her shoulder.

Reno was walking up the stairs calmly.

Then, all of a sudden, the speakers crackled a little and came to life:

"Yo."

And there was something weirdly familiar about that voice.

"Ge-Get that bird out of here!" a man shouted, and the speakers crackled some more.

"Hojo! Hojo!" screeched the first voice, and flapping noise followed. Then a bunch of "Over there!" and "Catch it!" and "Turn off the speakers!" ensued, and Paige couldn't help but gape. Weird and suspicious were the ways of parrots, and even more mysterious were the ways of John Smoth. How had he gotten himself into a room like that? Where was he? A broadcasting room somewhere? Surveillance room? Information desk? Anything like that?

"Shake it an' move it ova' here!" he rapped at whoever was following him. "Damn, it feels good ta be a gangsta'."

And Reno was standing in the stairs, staring off just like her, looking like he couldn't decide if he should be skeptical or let himself be amused. His eyes narrowed in concentration as he listened.

Chance.

Holding on to the lightning-deflecting baton for her life, she sprinted down the stairs towards him and jumped into the air, then—just as he turned to her, giving a surprised twist of his mouth—she kicked him square in the chest with both feet. And he went tumbling back, and Paige felt a surge of pride and growing ego and awesomeness, but only until she noticed she was falling, too. And there they were, the two of them, falling in slow motion, while John Smoth was rapping "Let's get retarded" through the speakers. Before Paige knew it, she landed on her back in the stairs (with some pain) and rolled down until she was on the floor next to Reno. Then she scrambled to her feet, her back aching. And out of nowhere, another revelation came to her.

The baton she had would protect her from lightning magic, right?
She had taken the baton from Reno, who used lightning magic.
If Reno no longer had the baton, he was not immune to lightning magic.

And the baton she had taken from him gave off sparks every time she pressed the button that was on it. Now she knew how to use it.

So when Reno—who was pissed that she had kicked him down the stairs—got to his feet and rushed at her with clenched fists, Paige gave him a very wide, un-karate-ish right hook that connected with his jaw.

And then there were sparks, glints and lightning all over the place, to the point that she was momentarily blinded. When it subsided Reno was one the floor, not moving a muscle, and Paige was overcome with sudden guilt and horror, because he didn't even look like he was alive anymore.

"Err," she said nervously, "Y-You... Reno? Re-Reno? Mister...?"

Then she sat down next to him and remained utterly helpless and terrified (her hands shaking with indecisiveness as to what to do) until she saw that he was breathing. And then she came to her senses and realized he might be faking, and she almost jumped to her feet. Determined to put as much distance between herself and Reno (and Reno's revenge) as possible, she ran back up the stairs and continued, while listening to John Smoth through the speakers: "What a beautiful day ta be free."

Sephiroth descended upon the Shinra Headquarters from above.

Hidden in the utmost north of Russia—whose inhabitants and leaders did not know of Shinra's existence—it remained out of the grasp of all its enemies. Swathed in constant howls and veils of snow and wind, and covered in layers of white ice, with walls made to look like sheer cliffs, it had the appearance of a mountainside just like any other. Except that inside, it was the complete opposite. Everything was high-tech thanks to electricity that was being extracted from the life force of the planet. Although most of the building was underground, there was plenty of room inside. At the moment they were apparently in a rush, though, because outside in the snow, conspicuous helicopters were left alone and unhidden. But that was not important right now.

Soon he would relish in the destruction of this place that had bereaved him of his freedom and his life thus far.

R.R.

I'm, like, back.