Make sure you read the Author's note at the bottom of the page after you've read the chapter.
Chapter 22: Into the Cosmos
My fun was forced to a complete halt when a loud crack could be heard, and the buggy started to lose speed.
I came to the conclusion that the loud crack was bad, and pulled the key out of the ignition, pulled up the handbrake, and promptly got out of the vehicle. My first order of business, to pull up the hood and take a look at the engine.
If a life-time of movies has taught me anything, it's that a car or some such vehicle always stops because of an engine problem. So, you just pop open the hood and take a peek inside, where the problem will be immediately clear, and the solution was to just tinker around.
That was the plan, but on opening the hood, I found a massive great engine staring back at me, and no clear sign of what was wrong. The fact that I have no mechanical skills wasn't helping, much to my annoyance.
I am beginning to suspect that a life-time of movies have lied to me.
After roughly ten minutes, everyone else was getting impatient, and I had Barret at my side as we tried to figure out what was wrong.
Barret might have been more orientated towards the labour part of coal mining back in the day, but a basic understanding of the mechanical arts was a requirement to work in the mines, according to Barret, which was why he was the one giving me a helping hand.
Cait was taking leave of his over-sized moogle and was perched on the edge of the hood, offering advice that told us that he was he slouch in the mechanical arts himself, though the cat did admit that he knew more about robotic mechanics than vehicle mechanics, but he still had some knowledge that could help out.
Despite the three of us mumbling, cursing and glaring at the engine, we could find no problem with the engine. Still, we carried on, even going so far as to discuss whether it would be a good idea to take the whole engine out in order to look at it properly.
The rest of AVALANCHE shared a collective groan at the idea, figuring that doing so would delay us even longer.
"What does this connect to?" I asked, pointing at what I was referring to.
Cait spared it a glance.
"That's the wheels. Gives the buggy its acceleration."
"I thought dat was what connected to th' wheels?" Barret pointed at a different part.
"That's what I thought." I admitted.
"Rear wheels then." Cait amended, his accent thickening slightly in embarrassment. "'Tis a four wheel drive."
"No, that was the rear wheel drive." I pointed at yet another part.
Both Cait and Barret looked at what I was pointing at, and then what I'd been pointing at before.
"Middle wheel drive?" Barret asked, confused.
"No... that was middle wheels..." I grunted, gesturing wildly.
The other two stared at the part and scratched their heads.
"The other middle wheels then."
Blinking, I leant sidewards to check the number of wheels on the buggy.
"I like this thing and all, but isn't eight-wheel drive a little over-kill?" I asked, shaking my head. "Feels like they made this thing as complicated as possible."
"Probably so no rival company could reverse engineer the engine." Cait supplied. "Who'd want ta try when just fixing the drat thing is enough to give even me a headache."
"What company designed this thing?" I asked. "I'd like to give them a piece of my mind."
"Mozda." Cait answered, examining the company badge on the front.
I turned to stare at Cait, eyebrow ridge raised.
"Mozda?"
"Aye. Supposedly they were once called Marsda, but then Mazda threatened to sue, so they changed to Mozda."
"Right... and this has to do with our current problem... how?"
"It doesn't. I just thought it an interesting bit of trivia."
A thump to the side had me looking away from the engine at Yuffie, who was trying to alleviate some of her boredom by doing cartwheels. Unfortunately for her, she hadn't been paying attention to where she'd been going, and as such had collided with the side of the buggy. She was now on the floor, nursing the top of her head.
"Oi. Why don't you make yourself useful?" I called out to her.
"I don't know the first thing about cars other than that they make me sick." She replied. "Seriously, how you can even drive that thing when you suffer motion sickness yourself is beyond me."
I shrugged to myself and returned to the task at hand. I was about to enquire about the purpose of yet another part of the engine when a shriek from the ninja forced my attention to return to her.
"You men and your so-called knowledge of the 'mechanical arts'!" She shrieked. "All that tinkering and you couldn't even figure out that the problem wasn't the engine, it was the axles!"
"What?" I asked, bemused, before crouching down to look under the vehicle, to see what she meant.
Ah, ok, I see what she meant. All four axles had snapped, leaving us with a working engine, inside a not so perfect chassis.
"Shit." I cursed softly.
Barret wasn't so quiet about it though.
"Shit!" He bellowed.
An engine problem had the potential to be fixed, if we knew what was wrong with the engine. Cracked axles however, were another story. To fix cracked axles, we need replacement axles, which you couldn't carry around like you could spare tires.
Oh, and you need a mechanic and his workshop...
Oh yeah, we're screwed.
"Spike, your driving destroyed our buggy!" Yuffie felt the need to scream, right in my ear.
"Gah!" I cried out, jumping away from the banshee that was Yuffie.
It took several seconds for the ringing in my ear to stop and for me to register just what she had accused me of.
"Hey, don't go pinning this on me!" I yelled. "Have you seen that suspension? This thing is supposed to be able to take much worse than what I've done!"
"I have a hard time believing that! All that air time, and those barrel rolls clearly broke our ride!"
"Clearly, you are delusional!"
"You're the delusional one!"
"Says the one who knows nothing of cars!"
"And what do you know of cars?"
"All the important things, like, how to drive!"
"What you do isn't driving, it's trying to commit suicide!"
I snorted at her last sentence.
"I got us to Gongaga!"
"Don't remind me, I still have the bruises from your parking skills!"
By this point, Yuffie and myself were shouting in each other's faces. Aeris, ever the voice of peace, took it upon herself to get between us and, with a surprising amount of strength, push us apart.
"Break it up." She commanded.
Neither me nor Yuffie paid her any heed, instead deciding to shout around this new obstacle. Aeris, clearly annoyed with being ignored, did what was always considered impossible. She rose her voice.
"BE QUIET!"
At the yell, both myself and the brat finally shut up, and decided it was time to stare in shock at Aeris, who took the moment of peace to calmly compose herself.
Even the wildlife had gone silent at Aeris' yelled command.
"Now, stay quiet." She ordered us, voice firm.
We nodded dumbly.
"Spike, you're the one who took the time to download a sat-nav to your PHS, how far are we from Cosmo Canyon?"
Silently, I took my phone from my pocket and scrolled down the list of programs. Finding my target, I tapped the button and watched as a GPS map appeared on the screen, showing where I was, and where Cosmo Canyon was.
"It's roughly half an hours hike, longer, if we bump into any monsters." I said at last.
Nodding, Aeris turned to Red, though when she spoke, it was just as much to me as it was to Red.
"Are there any trained mechanics at Cosmo Canyon?" She asked.
I searched through what little I could 'remember' about Cosmo Canyon, and found myself nodding, while it was Red who gave the verbal affirmative.
"Cosmo Canyon has long been a rest stop for travellers, and they often need supplies or help with repairs." Red informed everyone.
"And they'll fix up the buggy no sweat." I finished, realizing her train of thought.
Aeris clapped her hands together and gave the group a smile.
"Well then, a thirty minute is nothing to complain about. We'll just hike to Cosmo Canyon and they repair the buggy while we stay there."
Ok, that seems very sensible. I won't pretend to like it, since it means leaving my precious buggy behind, but it also means that the buggy will, in theory, be repaired by the time I next see it.
In theory...
Ok, the hike was slightly longer than half an hour... I hadn't taken into account how sodding steep the slope was, and how hot it was. And a group is only as fast as the slowest person and all that. So...
Yeah, the trip took a full hour. Really, it wasn't my fault. I can't sweat or even get bothered by the heat, so I could continue at a steady pace all the way. Hey, the no sweating does have a use other than never needing to use deodorant, for no sweat means no sweaty armpits, means no body odour... What was my original point again?
Well, at any rate, you knew you were nearly there, when rather than fighting against a natural hill, you were simply climbing stairs. Stairs which felt overly familiar from some reason. Must be more of those so-called memories. Damnit, they're trying to take over my life.
The guard at the top of the stairs was a short fellow with curly blond hair and a sharp chin; and he looked especially familiar. In his hand was a spear.
Two sets of conflicting memories intruded upon me. One from home, my real home, Earth, the real world, whatever you wanted to call it; the other one of these false memories. Both sets had one thing in common: this geezer in front of me.
I don't like him, and he sure as hell don't like me.
Before anything could be said, Red bounded up the remaining steps, coming to the front of the group.
"I am home!" He declared, sounding happy about the fact. Can't rightly blame him. "It is I , Nanaki!"
"Hey, Nanaki!" The guard gaped in shock. "You're safe! Come on, and say hello to Bugenhagen!"
As Red pushed past and into Cosmo Canyon proper, Cloud scratched his head, in confusion.
"...Nanaki?" He asked at last.
"Well you don't think 'Red' is his real name, do you?" I responded, trying to push my way to the front myself.
Somewhere at the back of the group, Barret seemed to cheer.
"Wooooooooo! I always wanted to come here!"
Shaking his head in amusement, the guard looked at Cloud.
"Welcome to Cosmo Canyon. Are you familiar with this land?"
Cloud opened his mouth, but I beat him to it.
"Yes." I grunted, pushing past the guard.
The guard grunted as he was forcibly shoved aside, but he regained his bearings quickly and turned on me, his grip on his spear tightening.
"Oi, you can't just enter like that..." he snapped.
"Try and stop me Rob, or have you forgotten that I live here?" I hissed, rounding on him.
Rob's eyes widened slightly, before he seemed to calm down, though he was still glaring.
"Oh, it's you." His said, voice flat. "I thought you'd gone for good."
"Thought, or hoped?" I asked, sarcastically.
Shaking my head, I turned away from the guard and moved towards the Cosmo Candle, letting the memories implant themselves in my mind. A lifetime of memories, memories which weren't mine, yet were. Memories like sitting at the Cosmo Candle, night after night, with only Red for company.
Sadly, my life here was comparable to my life back home, only here, I didn't have a family, just two people who raised me.
Jeez, couldn't Jade have made my back story here a little less depressing? I mean, my family is two guys that pretty much adopted me, so that's a significantly smaller family, and here, I have much less in the way of friends.
Scratch that, I had no friends other than Red.
No offence to Red, and his skills as a friend, but that is just depressing. Add that he's been a captive of the Shinra for some time, there was a period where I had pretty much nothing.
Now I'm really depressed.
"Hey, you missed this place?" Red asked, coming up behind me.
I shook my head in a negative.
"I missed certain people. Adrian, Xenor, Bugenhagen, and you." I answered. "I never had much here. When you disappeared, the place seemed a lot less friendly."
"You're going to continue travelling with Cloud, aren't you?"
I nodded.
"You plan on staying." I didn't ask, I didn't even need to have memories of the game to know that he didn't plan to continue journeying with us.
Red nodded.
"Will you be visiting them?"
I didn't need to ask who he was referring to, it was fairly obvious.
"Yeah." I answered.
My feet seemed to guide themselves, like I was travelling a path I'd travelled often. I eventually came to a stop at what my memories told me was my home, where I'd spent my entire life before leaving Cosmo Canyon.
I felt strangely nervous.
I was about to meet the two who were the closest people I had to family in this world, for what I knew was the first time, but my memories told me that I'd known them as long as I could remember.
It didn't help that I had left for Midgar against Adrian's wishes. Xenor had said it was my choice, but Adrian had wanted me to have nothing to do with the Shinra, and certainly not get involved in the eco-terrorism.
It honestly didn't help that he was a veteran of the AVALANCHE War. The AVALANCHE back then wasn't as righteous as the current incarnation.
If memory serves, the leader, or someone high up the chain of command, one Fuhito wanted to destroy the world or some such. Righteous in words, doesn't always mean righteous in actions.
Eventually, I took a deep breath and let myself in.
The home was... cosy looking. It was clear that it was the home of a group of males, it lacked that touch that marked the presence of a female, but despite that, it was clear that the people who lived here took care of their home. As I looked I could see ghosts, my memories taking a form outside of my mind, of my life in this home.
On one of the shelves, I noticed a framed photo and moved towards it, gently picking it up.
The photo held me, as a small child, in the arms of the resident Vortigaunt. It's hard to read the alien's expression, but I swear he was smiling.
The sound of a footstep had me putting the photo back and turning around. In one of the doorways stood the Vortigaunt in question, looking at me, head tilted slightly. We stood, staring at each other for several seconds, before I grinned.
"Hey." I greeted.
Xenor nodded back, moving towards me. Once he was in range, he grabbed me into a tight bear-hug... which felt weird with the extra arm coming out of his chest, but at the same time, right.
After he finally released me, he examined me more closely, and I could see all of his red eyes drifting to the scar going across my eye, though several eyes then peered closely at my forehead.
"How did you gain such injuries?" He asked, voice serious.
"Huh?" I asked, dumbly.
"That scar will never truly heal, for a reason I cannot discern. Your forehead however, the injury is older, but so extensive that even aided by magic, it will still take a while to heal fully."
"Yeah, I still feel the phantom pains..." I mumbled, before looking at Xenor. "How could you tell, it looks perfectly normal to me."
The Vortigaunt gave a rough sounding chuckle.
"You forget, young one, that not all of my eyes see the world as you do. I can see the natural energies of your body, and amongst the various injuries you seem to have acquired in your absence, those two are the most prominent."
"Right..."
"Though I am curious as to how you were injured in such a sensitive place, not once, but twice..."
...
Shit... How does one go about telling a father-figure that I was hit in the family jewels once by accidental collision of a pole and once through the swift kick of a scorned female?
'That'd be an awkward conversation.' Spike inserted his input. 'Yeah pops, the last Ancient accidentally hit me in the gonads because we taught her to be a head-banger, and oh, the other time? Yeah, a hot Turk didn't take kindly to being put out with the trash... No, I don't have much luck with the women... Yes, I should probably stay away from them for the rest of my natural life... maybe turn gay...'
Shut up, Spike.
"Ah..." I managed to utter, before being saved by the entry of another presence.
Turning around, I came face to face with a tall, dark haired man, dressed in urban camouflaged fatigues. The most noticeable thing about him, besides the extremely wicked looking gunblade that was slung across his back (clearly a design that required two hands to use, unlike my gunblade), was the Mako glow in his eyes.
Adrian Shepard, I presume.
The SOLDIER's lips twitched into a momentary smile, before his eyes drifted to my scar, and the smile vanished, along with his eyes hardening.
"How you get that?" He demanded to know, poking at the scar.
"Oh that's a fine how'd-you-do." I waved my hands, as I back-pedalled away from him. "At least Xenor had the decency to actually greet me before asking about my injuries. Asking, mind, not demanding."
Shepard looked abashed a moment, then his eyes hardened again.
"Injuries, plural?" He growled, turning to Xenor. "What injuries?"
'Jeez, he's just a tad over-protective, isn't he?'
No wonder we left to go to Midgar, I'm feeling a little claustrophobic already...
"What injuries?" Adrian asked again.
Trying to ward off the over-protective mother-hen, Xenor answered, waving all three arms in an effort to keep the human away.
"He had a serious injury on his forehead, serious enough that even his high-level magic, it's still in the process of repairing itself. It looks like he had to take pain-killers for a while, the phantom pains would have been so severe."
Eyes wide, Adrian turned to face me again.
"What happened?" He demanded.
"A sodding berserker decided that it would be great fun to toss me off a mountain face first, and then followed after me, making sure my face was against the mountain as we fell."
Shepard winced at the mental image, before registering something in his mind.
"What were you doing with a berserker on a mountain?" He asked, eyes narrowed.
"Well it was hardly like I knew that the commander that was marching his forces up the mountain was a berserker, was it?" I snapped. "I certainly didn't ask for the friendly folk at Shinra to send a berserker marching up to Fort Condor."
"You were at Fort Condor?" Shepard gaped. "This would be after you threw the President's pet off of the roof of Shinra Tower?"
"Yea... Wait, how did you know about that?"
"Never mind that." Shepard waved the question aside. "What did you do to Garland?"
"Eh? I don't know, I can't remember much after actually being thrown off of the mountain." I shrugged. "Why?"
"Because Grand Commander Garland Thorn was admitted to a Shinra hospital with serious neck injuries."
"Define 'serious neck injuries'. I remember putting a bullet in his brain and he was still going, so it'd have to be one hell of a neck injury."
"Serious as in he had no throat left."
I paused, remembering waking up in the medical bay with the taste of blood in my mouth. I can remember thinking that it wasn't mine, but I was doped up on vicodin at the time, and still partially in shock, so I was hardly in a reasonable state of mind to be believed.
"I blacked out shortly after landing. I don't know what happened to Garland; for all I know, someone else finished him off."
Shepard seemed to relax, though he still gazed at me weirdly.
"And the scar? Why haven't you healed it yet?"
"I can't." I answered, honestly.
"What do you mean, you can't?"
"He means that it is not possible, and it is not from lack of trying." Xenor cut in. "I can even see an energy that is pure is spirit that would normally heal any injuries with the greatest of ease has been unable to even begin to repair the damage."
"How the hell did you get an injury that is unhealable?" Shepard asked.
Oh, this is not going to end well, I can already see that.
"I... kinda..."
"Spit it out!"
"IgotintoafightwithSephiroth!"
Shepard hesitated...
"I heard Sephiroth mentioned... run that by me again, in plain Gaian this time."
"I. Got. Into. A. Fight. With. Sephiroth."
Both Adrian and Xenor stared at me, unblinking, though for all I know, Xenor might not blink normally.
"How in the hell did you get into a fight with Sephiroth?" Shepard asked, confused.
"Indeed. The one known as Sephiroth was killed at Nibelheim." Xenor felt the need to point out.
"Well clearly he is a very touchy dead man. He really didn't appreciate being called a momma's boy."
Shepard sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Why did you call Sephiroth a momma's boy exactly?"
"Because he keeps referring to Jenova as 'mother'."
Xenor himself looked up sharply at the mention of Jenova.
"Impossible. Jenova was destroyed many millennia ago." He growled.
"Shinra found the remains. Apparently Sephiroth has some connection to them, it's the reason he burnt Nibelheim, the remains were stored in the reactor."
"How do you know this?" Shepard queried.
"I'm travelling with two Nibelheim survivors. One is the other SOLDIER. Cloud Strife."
Instead of looking up at the name of the SOLDIER he'd met in Nibelheim, Adrian looked confused.
"Cloud?"
"Look, never mind." I muttered. "I was just visiting while I had a chance; as soon as the buggy is fixed, I'll probably be gone again."
Shepard sighed at my statement.
"Right. No way I can talk you out of it?"
"None whatsoever."
Another, sigh.
"One question, young one." Xenor spoke up. "Why are you wearing nothing beneath your coat?"
"My t-shirt got shredded in a fight with the Turks." I shrugged. "I had friends to help, so my clothes were the only things damaged."
Shepard nodded, and as he looked away, I shot Xenor a look, knowing that he could already tell I'd been injured and killed. The Vortigaunt nodded, giving me a conspiratorial grin.
"I will go and prepare some dinner." The alien said after a pause, retreating into what I believe was the kitchen.
With the alien gone, Shepard looked at me again, before actually smiling this time.
"It's good to see you, again." He finally said.
I found myself joining in the smile.
"Yeah, good to be back. Though I find myself wondering why I missed your mother hen habits..."
At the cry of mock outrage, I sprinted up the stairs, moving towards where I knew my bedroom was.
I needed to grab my spare clothes. All of them. I had the means to carry the whole lot now, so I wasn't planning on wasting the chance. It would beat spending my precious gil on some new ones.
Roughly an hour later, I had a full belly, and was wondering around Cosmo Canyon, taking in the sights.
At that moment in time, I was wearing a new pair of jeans, my old ones having been gleefully tossed away, the blood stains having made their mark permanent, and a plain black tank top. My coat was, for once, not being worn, but was instead in my storage materia (I really need to find of a better name, it sounds so weird calling it storage materia, even though that's what it was).
I paused my travels at one part of Cosmo Canyon that wasn't in my memories of this place before I'd left.
A tattooist...
Now this presents an opportunity. It'll be a while before I'm legally old enough to get a tattoo, and that's if I actually decide to get one. But here, in this world, I can get a tattoo here and now, and there won't be any permanent consequences.
Who says I can't take advantage of my predicament in such a way?
It was with that mentality that I found myself, forty minutes later, with a tattoo. Ok, it was probably fairly unoriginal, considering that it was a tribal lizard that had been tattooed onto my upper left arm, the tail of which coiled around my arm, but I like it.
And I'm not about to let anything anyone says to me deter me from this fact.
Even if I have to wait a couple of days before I can actually remove the bandage that covered it. Something about avoiding getting it infected...
Anyway, I continued wondering around and eventually found myself in the library. The huge library that was literally stacked to the ceiling with books and scrolls and the like.
It also had somebody sitting, hunched over a table, reading something, intently.
"Who are you?" I asked, not recognising him as an Elder.
The man sat up and gave me a small wave, turning to look at me.
"Hello there. Not often you see Bangaa in this part of the world." The man commented, before blinking, and taking a closer look. "And you aren't a Bangaa, are you?"
"No." I shook my head. "I'm just one of a kind."
"Aren't we all?" The man smirked. "Still, not often one sees any form of sentient non-human in the northern continents."
"As opposed to wherever you came from?"
"Ivalice. And indeed, many other species down there. Bangaa, Moogles, Vierra..."
"So what brings you up to the north?" I asked.
"Knowledge. I'm looking for something known as the Cache of Glabados." The man answered, peering at the texts in front of him. "You wouldn't know anything of it, would you?"
"Cache of Glabados? Can't say I so." I shook my head.
"Shame... the Cache of Glabados appears to be a rather elusive find. Get a hint, follow the hint, only to learn that it hadn't been where it was supposed to be for several millennia. Get another riddle that tells us of its resting place, and repeat."
"Sounds irritating."
A snort of amusement was the response.
"The best things in life are guarded by such irritations."
"Right, well happy hunting." I grunted.
Shaking my head in amusement, I exited the library, but was halted at the door by the man's voice.
"It's Balthier."
"Huh?" I turned back to face the man.
"You asked who I was, well, I'm Balthier."
"Spike." I nodded at the man.
"Good like with your own hunt, Spike."
"Thanks."
I exited the library, no interruptions this time, and was quickly found by Red, who'd apparently been looking for me. The large red lupine hesitated, nose twitching as he looked at the bandage around my arm. I suppose that he could smell the ink.
"Spike, you never did get to see Grandpa's apparatus, did you?" He asked, after shaking the smell of the ink from his mind.
"Can't say I ever did. Why?"
"There is room for one more, if you go to Grandpa's study, you'll get to see."
"You're not coming?"
"I've seen it, and it's you and the rest who plan on saving the planet."
I nodded, softly.
"Right."
And thus I was walking up the long flight of stairs that led to Bugenhagen's study, while Red had decided to go and sit at the Cosmo Candle. I have a feeling that he was just being lazy.
The inside of Bugenhagen's study was... cramped. Books lay all over the place, leaving only a trail to a ladder, and a trail to a door clear. Each book, from what I saw, was based on the study of the Lifestream, and the planet in general.
"Here, over here. The door's unlocked, come on in. Ho Ho Hoooo." A loud voice laughed, making me jump.
The voice came from behind the door, and considering that he mentioned that the door was unlocked, I assumed that that was where I had to go.
The door led to a spacious looking room, with a domed ceiling which looked as though it had been painted blue numerous times in the past few years.
Waiting for me was Cloud, Tifa, Barret and Bugenhagen... appeared to be floating about a foot above the ground... or rather, the giant green ball he was sitting on was floating... huh?
Bugen was clearly aged, his face, though showing that he was jovial in nature, was marred with deep wrinkles and he was completely bald. He wore dark, round spectacles, which were perched in the tip of his nose, and a heavy blue robe. His goatee was neatly trimmed.
They were all waiting for me by a strange contraption in the center of the room.
"Welcome, Spike." Bugenhagen greeted me. "Come forwards, so that we may begin."
I took several steps forwards, and the creepy old man clapped his hands together.
"Ho Ho Hoooo." He chuckled, sounding suspiciously like Santa Claus.
Dress him in red, and he'd look the part too.
"Then let's begin." He said, once his laugh was over. "I'll be standing here."
His definition of standing must be different from mine. He's sitting on a floating green ball, that is the opposite of standing.
With his words said, Buganhagen flicked some unseen switch.
The room darkened, the lights now turned off. For several seconds, I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face, but then a different source of light emerged. The ceiling itself seemed to glow, and yet, it wasn't.
Speaking of the ceiling, it had changed to look like an ocean of stars.
I barely had the time to register all of this, before the floor vibrated and then began to rise. Myself and the other three stumbled slightly, not having been prepared for this sudden development. The floor clicked into place, and then everything changed. The ceiling now looked like the real thing, and floating above us was the solar system of this world.
Barret gaped, frantically trying to see everything all at once, while Tifa took the time to carefully examine everything, amazement sown onto her features. Cloud was the one who reacted the least, but his wide eyes showed that he was just as surprised.
I've got to say, the scene from the game? It does not do this justice.
"Wow!" Tifa exclaimed at last. "It's just like the real thing!"
Bugan nodded, floating slightly higher, so that he now rested beneath the Jupiter look-alike.
"Yes, pretty good." He hummed. "This is my laboratory. All the workings of space, are entered into this 3D holographic system."
Tifa continued to look around in amazement, before gasping in surprise.
"Look, look!" She cried out. "A shooting star"£
As if it was a signal, everything started to move. I briefly watched the shooting star that Tifa had pointed out, before turning my gaze to a which had chosen that moment to rotate into my field of vision. I would have claimed that it was Mars, but to my knowledge, Mars was rotating around a larger planet. Nor did it have seven moons of its own.
At that moment, a trio of comets shot by, zooming past Bugenhagen, until they were consumed by a nearby black hole. Then, everything still again.
"Oh, this is amazing!" Tifa repeated.
I had to agree with her. If anything, she was understating the fact, but I couldn't think of a word that worked better.
"Yes, it is something, isn't it." Bugen said, after another Santa laugh. "Well, let's get to the subject."
Everyone turned to give the older man their attention.
"Eventually... all humans." Bugen began, voice grim. "What happens when they die? The body decomposes and returns to the planet. That much, everyone knows. What about their consciousness, their hearts, and their souls?"
He turned to face us.
"The soul too returns to the planet." He declared. "And not only that of humans, but everything on this planet. In fact, all living things in this universe are the same. The spirits that return to the planet merge with one another and roam the planet.
"They roam, converge, and divide, becoming a swell, called the 'Lifestream'. Lifestream, in other words, a path of energy of the souls roaming the planet."
Bugen gave each of us a hard look.
"'Spirit energy' is a term you should never forget." He declared. "A new life... Children are blessed with spirit energy, and are brought into the world. Then, the time comes when they die and once again return to the planet... of course, as with every rule, there are exception, that that is the way of the world."
Shaking his head, the old man turned back to the solar system.
"I've digressed, but you'll understand better if you watch this."
On some unspoken command, everything began moving again, but when the planet easily identifiable as Gaia came next to Bugen, all else disappeared.
On the top of the world was a projection of a person, and a tree. For several seconds, nothing happened, but then they started to disintegrate, turning into two separate streams of energy, one blue, the other yellow. Both streams met, and merged, forming a single green stream, which then transformed into a new person. This began repeating all over the world.
"Spirit energy is a part of all life: birds, trees, humans." Bugan informed us. "The flow of that spirit energy is what allows this planet to exist. But what if we were to take that energy away.
With his question still hanging in the air, Begenhagen held out his hand, and all of the flowing energy, which by this point covered the entire planet, flowed away from the world and towards his hand, leaving behind a dark, empty husk which was once a world. The dead planet, for there was no other way to describe it, splintered and cracked apart, chunks slowly falling away, before the whole thing shattered.
"These are the basics of the Study of Planet Life." Bugen concluded.
"If the spirit energy is lost, our planet is destroyed..." Cloud repeated, with a sour expression evident.
"Spirit energy is efficient because it exists within nature." Bugenhagen claimed. "When spirit energy is forcefully extracted and manufactured, it can't accomplish its true purpose."
Now that sounded familiar.
"You're talking about Mako energy, right." Cloud asked.
"Everyday, Mako reactors suck up spirit energy, diminishing it." Bugen nodded. "Spirit energy gets compressed in the reactors and processed into Mako energy. All living things are being used up and thrown away."
"The reactors are forcefully disrupting the circle of life." I nodded. "There can be no new life to continue the circle, because the fuel of life is being destroyed."
The old man nodded. And on a hidden command, the floor lowered. Once it was back at ground level, the lighting changed to how it had been originally, and Barret and Tifa exited the room, deep in thought. I turned to follow, but paused at the sound of Cloud's voice.
"I'd like to ask about Nanaki's father." Cloud said to Bugenhagen, who gestured for the blond to continue. "He claims that his father was a coward..."
"Nanaki's father, a coward?" Bugen asked, shaking his head. "Has that been what he's thought all this time?"
"You didn't know?" I asked. "I remember him making that view clear to me, even when I was just a kid."
"I see." Bugan murmured, shaking his head some more.
Shrugging to myself, I left the room and began to move down to the Cosmo Candle, where I could already see everyone else sitting. Well, everybody except Cloud, but he's right behind me, so he doesn't count.
I sat down, between Barret and Cait Sith, making myself comfortable. Cloud joined me later. He turned to look at Barret, who seemed to be feeling a little nostalgic.
"Cosmo Canyon... This's where AVALANCHE was born..." Barret mused. "I promised my guys someday... when we saved the planet from the Shinra, that we'd all go to Cosmo Canyon and celebrate... Biggs... Wedge... Jessie... Now Wedge is gone... died for the planet. Really? To save the planet? We all... we all hate the Shinra... Do I even got to go on? Will he...... ...will he ever forgive me? ...Right now, I really don't know. But I know one thing. If there's anything I can do, to save the planet... or the people livin' on it...
"Then I'm gonna do it! I don't care if it's for justice or revenge, or whatever. I don't care......let'em decide for 'emselves. Urrrrrgh! I'm gonna do it!! Again... Again... AVALANCHE's born again!"
I flinched away from the loud man, who had jumped to his feet to yell out that last part at the top of his voice. Noticing that everyone was looking at him, Barret blushed slightly and sat down, mumbling under his breath.
Obviously fearing the safety of his eardrums, Cloud turned to me instead.
"So what's your story?" He asked, curiously.
"What do you mean?" I replied.
"You say you live here, but that guard didn't like you, and I haven't seen anyone that looks like you. Are you the last of your kind, as Red is?"
I gave a soft snort, looking at the blond.
"Who knows. I was raised here, by a human and a Vortigaunt, who found me as a hatchling." I grunted with a shrug. "I'm one of those lame movie plots... I was found as a baby, and raised by complete strangers, and now that I'm older, I'm fighting an evil corporation, who if my life gets any more clichéd, will somehow be responsible for my existence."
"Hatchling?" Cloud asked.
"I'm a lizard, ergo, it is safe to assume I hatched from an egg. I have no belly button, so I definitely know that I wasn't born as you humans are."
Cloud nodded, after a moment of trying to figure out what I meant.
"Makes sense. No belly means no umbilical cord."
"Which means either I came from an egg, or artificial means..."
"How depressing." Cloud shook his head. "Vortigaunt?"
I looked up and pointed to the side, where I could see Xenor walking to wherever it was he was going.
"That guy." I grunted.
Cloud wasn't the only one who turned to look, Yuffie tried to get a look as well, and her mouth formed an 'o' shape as she saw him.
"I see what you meant by being beaten on the unique looks." She finally said.
I chuckled, and turned to gaze at the fire...
"What's this you've been saying about this one behind this one's back?" A gravely voice said, right near my ear.
"GAH!" I cried out, leaping to my feet, hand resting over my now rapidly beating heart.
"Xenor, don't do that!" I stuttered. "I'll have a heart attack on of these days.
The Vortigaunt gave me a pointed look.
"Your heart is still perfectly healthy, if beating more rapidly than usual, but that is to be expected."
Wise-ass, with your all seeing eyes.
"And please refrain from trying to insult this one with your thoughts."
"What, are you psychic now?"
"No, this one merely knows you too well." Xenor answered without missing a beat.
I was tempted to flip the bird at him, but decided to refrain from the act. It would make me seem even more immature than Yuffie, and that would be a bad thing.
The Vortigaunt gave a chuckle, examining each member of AVALACNHE before resting all of his eyes on Red.
"It is most excellent to see you alive and well once again, Nanaki of Cosmo Canyon." Xenor bowed.
"And you too, Xenor." Red nodded back.
Again, the Vortigaunt gave everyone a look before buggering off to wherever he was going originally, unless he had only come out to try and give me a heart attack.
"Your heart is perfectly fine, young one."
Shit, he really does know me a little too well.
"Still eccentric as ever, I see." Red commented.
"You say eccentric, I say he just enjoys annoying me." I responded.
Sitting myself back down, I gazed into the eternal flame, ignoring Cloud making his round of talking to each member of AVALANCHE, only speaking up when Aeris made a comment about being alone.
"So are two other people sitting around this flame. Red is publicly acknowledged as the last of his kind. Me, I have absolutely no idea. Welcome to the club. We got t-shirts."
Aeris nodded at that, and Cloud continued his rounds, ending with Red, who told Cloud about Seto.
"What happened?" Cloud asked, in genuine curiosity.
"It's about my parents." Red admitted. "When I talk about my mother, I am full of pride and joy... And that's fine. ...But when I remember my father, my heart is full of anger..."
"...You really can't forgive your father...?"
At the new voice, I looked up to see Bugenhagen floating down towards us.
"Of course." Red snarled. "He...... left mother for dead. When the Gi tribe attacked, he ran off by himself, leaving mother and the people of the Canyon!"
Red's adopted grandpa sighed, looking at the lupine sadly, before turning around.
"...Come, Nanaki. There's something you should see."
Red's face was a question mark.
"The place may be dangerous. Cloud, will you and Spike come with us?"
Cloud nodded, and both he and I stood up, already checking our weapons. With the temporary absence of my coat, my gunblade's sheath was attached to the back of my belts, so that the handle stuck out to my left, in the perfect place to pull it free. Ok, having the other end of the gunblade sticking out to my right was a bit irritating, but that was why I had it slanted, so that it pointed downwards, in order to limit the amount sticking out.
Once I'd checked that all my materia was in place, including several orbs in an anklet I had bought while exploring Cosmo Canyon. It made sense for me to use an anklet rather and a bracer, partially due to my hating anything toughing my arms (wrist watch being the exception), and besides, when an enemy evaluates us, their eyes will check us for bracers, not for an anklet which was hidden under a pair of jeans.
Even if at the moment it only held my restore and ice materia.
At least this meant I was no longer stunting myself of how much materia I could equip.
Once we'd checked our equipment, I followed after Bugenhegan.
If memory serves, we'll be in the middle of some action soon.
AN::
Right, until January, I won't be writing anymore chapters. My reason is thus:
I've noticed that a lot of the delays in posting chapters, comes because I went and completely burnt myself out writing too much to quickly. So I came up with a new system in order to try and avoid this.
What I will do, is write this fic, in seasons. Like on TV.
I will spend an entire month writing out as many chapters as I can, only writing into the next month to finish a chapter I'd already started. However, I will not post any of these chapters, not yet.
The next month, I will post these new chapters, one at a time, at a set time, on a set day (likely Saturday), weekly.
The next month will be my relaxation month. I will do nothing but use my imagination to consider new ideas and the like, but I won't actually do anything physical that involves IWGH2.
The next month, the process starts over.
This way, I won't completely burn myself out, and will still be writing to a set schedule. A highly flexible schedule.
This means that I will actually have a set time I can ease off the work, which, while it might be enjoyable for me, still gets boring if I do nothing BUT write write write...
As a target, I'd try to release 5 chapters a season, but forgive me if I do end up writing less. Life happens and all that shit.
Remember that this is experimental, but I have high hopes that in doing this in seasons, it will prevent those delays, because I'm that much less likely to burn myself out.
And as a side note, because it would become a set routine, it works well with my Asperger's Syndrome (yes, I'm mildly autistic, deal).
And yet another side note, admittedly, this is best case scenario, but if I manage to get my target each season, that means a minimum of 20 chapters a year. And it gives me my birthday and Christmas to relax (along with two other months, which don't really hold any significance).
And the reason I don't count the month that I upload the chapters as rest months will be because I'll be going ever each chapter with a fine tooth comb multiple time in order to iron out any graphical errors. So while I won't be properly writing, I will still be working on quality control.
And on an unrelated note... if you send me PMs telling me to 'hurry up and upload the next chapter or [insert death threat]', at least make sure that your death threat sounds comical in nature. That way, while telling me that yes, you are eager for an update, you also give me a good laugh.