Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII. I depend on my daughter, Angeal Valentine (the author formerly known as xXxValentinexXx), and on Bjanik for all my information on the subject.

A/N—As I flew into DFW after my mom's surgery, a new Turk character wouldn't stop "picking" at me. Other than the last two sections, this chapter was started just over a week ago. I hope I got all the snags out, but probably not… It's the fifth day of Tessa's confinement, and the twenty-second week, fifth day of her pregnancy. The story continues with Carlos Griegos' team in Wutai—it starts 8 hours after the attack on Shinra in Midgar and at the same time as Chapter 14—and will touch on Marcus' fate near Gongaga…

(12 midnight, Wutai; 4 am, Gongaga; 8 am, Midgar; 10 am, Mideel)

"The descent into darkness," that was what Tseng had called it. Could the name be any more ominous? Possibly, Carlos Griegos decided, but at the moment he couldn't think how.

Tseng had supplied Griegos with a list of three secret tunnel exits out of Wutai palace, all of which emerged on the far side of the complex away from the thousand-foot-high cliff where the palace perched. However, the team had confirmed what Tseng had suspected–that the Wutainese knew that Tseng knew of those entrances and had closed them to Shinra incursions. Other than having their potential entries blocked, Griegos' luck, so far, had held. They had been able to avoid Wutainese troops and civilians, even cows, as they covered the fifteen miles to Wutai City from their own escape tunnel from the Soldier base.

As a last resort, Tseng had listed one other option for entry. This final option, however, would not get them into the palace per se. Instead they would attempt to infiltrate the High Shrine from below. The Wutainese priesthood used a series of caves as part of their spiritual training and had done so probably for millennia. Before becoming full-fledged priests, candidates descended into the caves for three days of "spiritual examination" in total darkness. When they returned—if they returned, and some didn't—the candidates were "reborn" into the light and took their final vows. What Tseng proposed for Griegos was that his commando team attempt to enter the shrine/palace complex via the caves. Would this then be their "ascent into light"? Griegos pondered the possibility. Just as long as it lead them to their ultimate goal, the capture of Godo and his daughter, even possibly Genesis Rhapsodos, the way could lead through hell for all Griegos cared. According to Tseng the caves could be entered from outside the cliff face.

Yes, this was the place. Col. Griegos studied a two-foot-wide hole in the ground with water bubbling out of it, double checked the coordinates and compass in his hands, then glanced at his second-in-command. Bill Wallace gave him a stiff nod in response. According to Tseng, Tenshin stream flowed out of the hole from an underground lake. From the lake they could make their way through the caves and emerge inside the ancient High Shrine. Tseng had said he had discovered the route when he was a child and that to his knowledge the hole where Tenshin stream emerged had never been guarded. It was time to squeeze into that hole. Hm. Griegos took off his shoulder guards and sword and handed them off to his second, put his knife between his teeth, and began to crawl into the stream. They were all about to get very wet…

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Half a mile back into the cliff face, Griegos' thoroughly soaked and disheveled team came face-to-face with Tseng's underground lake. Someone set materia aglow to give light to the cave. Everyone paused for a few moments drinking in the beauty of the lake cavern. It was spectacular. Stalactites hung down from the ceiling while stalagmites pointed up from the floor "rushing" to meet them. The rocks were banded with pink and yellow. The water of the lake, however, was an eerie deep green in the materia light.

"Tenshin," Carlos Griegos thought as he looked at the lake, "Heaven heart, maybe?" Even though he was commander of the Wutai base for Shinra, Griegos' Wutainese was "limited," to say the least. "Have to ask Akita, when we get out of here." Jens Akita, a new third class, was half-Wutainese, looked native, and spoke the language fluently. Griegos spread his hands apart, palms out, in the Soldier sign for "spread out." Half his team went right, and the other half went left around the lake shore. As they walked, one of the black-leather clad Turks started a flame with a lighter—probably the stocky, ugly one, code-named "Digital." To Griegos, the man was a complaining nuisance. Digital, at the moment, however, was studying his flame intently rather than talking. There were a number of tunnels with water trickling through them entering the lake cavern. As he walked about in front of the tunnels, the lighter's flame burned steadily. As Digital passed in front of one narrow tunnel entrance, however, the lighter's flame started jumping about. Digital jerked his head toward this tunnel. Fresh air was coming from outside.

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Carlos Griegos tilted his head to look up through a narrow tunnel stretching away into darkness. The walls were slick with moisture and possessed only slight indentations for potential hand holds that he could see. Griegos turned back to his people to consider whom to send up this nightmare wormhole. "Who," he thought, "has the best upper body strength? Probably Cho…" After a nod and hand signs to Cho Lee, Cho jumped about fifteen feet into the tunnel then stuck out his hands and feet and began spider climbing up the walls. As Cho climbed, Griegos could occasionally see him dig his fingers into small cracks in the wall, but for the most part Cho kept his palms flush. With his hands and feet secure, Cho was soon able to push off with a short jump of about ten feet. Next Ted Stanley and Tom Danzen joined Cho in the tube. Soon the three had a rhythm going as they moved upward. About fifty feet up the tunnel turned, and his men disappeared from view. Ten minutes later Ted Stanley slid down the chute with ropes wound about his waist.

Stanley whispered, "about a hundred feet up, this tunnel expands into a long gallery. We can pull people up with ropes if we need to." Griegos nodded and began motioning his people upward. Ropes were tied about the waists of the five non-Soldiers. When it came the turn of the second Turk, a freckle-faced, red-headed young woman, code-named Analog ("An" for short), her partner, Digital, stepped forward eagerly to tie the rope around her waist. She grimaced but didn't stop him. When Digital finished, however, An stomped his toes with one foot, reached behind his head, smashed his face onto her opposite knee, and bloodied his nose. "Pervert. Serves you right, Dij," she whispered. Griegos and his remaining Soldiers looked at the woman in surprise, then Griegos smiled slightly. Analog was not only attractive, she could take care of herself, it seemed. Digital smirked and shook his head then wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand.

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The rest of the climb was repetitive—narrow, near vertical, wormholes followed by galleries rising less steeply—with one of his men checking the airflow direction when the tunnels forked or when selecting a wormhole to follow from a gallery. At the end of yet another gallery, Griegos squinted at his watch, tilting it to catch the materia light. They'd been in these tunnels nearly two hours. They had to be getting close to the exit. They had found moss-covered skeletons in the last two galleries.

Suddenly Cho Lee appeared before him and gave the signs for "door" and "ahead." Griegos gave the "acknowledged" sign, and then jerked his head sideways at the nearby Turks signaling them to follow Cho. With stiff nods of their own, the three set out, Griegos following. "Mental note to self," Griegos thought, "recommend cross-training Turks in Soldier hand signals."

Around a bend was an ornamental, woven-metal screen door tilted across their path with hinges that seemed to be attached to the outside rock. Through the weave Griegos could make out a small room with two rows of stone benches facing the screen as if the occupants could use them to await the return of the priestly candidates. Digital and Analog were already examining the ornamental door for locks and booby-traps. Nodding to each other, An backed off. Griegos considered wrenching the door and hinges out of the rock but decided instead to open it quietly and protect his escape route.

Digital smirked and rubbed his hands together. This would be a bit tricky as the front of the lock was on the outside of the door, but it was old, very large, and had an opening to the tumblers on the backside as well. He and An had detected no booby-traps or alarms on the door. Digital pulled out a set of well-worn lock picks. Only Reno was better at locks than Digital. If locks were electronic, then Digital even had the advantage. If they were old-fashioned, mechanical contractions, however, like the present specimen, then Digital conceded that Reno had the edge when it came to opening such items. But he'd make no such concessions in front of Soldiers! Digital inserted a lock pick, then a second pick into the lock, delicately twisted his first pick and heard a soft opening "snick." Ah, that did it. He glanced back at that stiff, Griegos, behind him, and breathed a soft expression, "oops!" At Griegos' startled look, Digital lifted the screen door just barely open with a smirk and bowed with a flourish of his hand. Griegos frowned, "Note to self: delete last note on Soldier-Turk cooperation." Griegos bowed his head at Digital and waved, with a smirk of his own, "after you." Digital nodded and walked out the door. Of course, he was first. Turks should always be first.

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"Cameras and lighting," Col. Griegos thought as he stood at a side door to the shrine, judging his timing, waiting for a cloud to cross the crescent moon, feeling like he was directing a movie waiting for his lighting people to do their jobs.

In more peaceful times, Shinra had agreed to not put video cameras in the High Shrine as a courtesy to Wutai, possibly convinced that the fifty or so clergy usually in residence there would be little threat to Shinra. Otherwise, up until recently, Shinra video cameras, rather obvious ones, had covered much of the rest of the palace and its grounds. The cameras were linked to a guard post. When Wutai had rebelled, however, the monitoring post had been an early victim, and Wutainese troops had taken it over. Whether Wutai was watching the interior of its own capital any longer, Griegos was uncertain; however, he wasn't about to take any chances. While most of the Shinra cameras fed to that guard post, a few—strategically located, and extremely well hidden—fed back to the Soldier base. By giving the Wutainese a few "safe" corridors without obvious cameras, clandestine activities had been pushed into those corridors and had thus been monitored by Soldier. Even the night that Princess Yuffie had been confirmed, troops monitoring the "safe corridor" had seen two people furtively moving across their screens to the shrine—the pair, however, had not been recognized by the personnel on duty. Griegos' dilemma stemmed from an assumption. He knew that none of the concealed cameras had been touched by Wutai as, at least up until two days ago, base headquarters had still been seeing normal palace activity. Could he assume, however, that the Wutainese had not adjusted Soldier's obvious cameras to view the "safe corridors"?

"There's no choice." Griegos thought to himself. "They have to go." The colonel didn't want to split his team, but there was no other way. He signaled Bill Wallace to head out on a safe corridor. Wallace made eye contact with each of his team members—Tom Danzen, Jerry Aman, and Analog—then hit the doorway at a quiet dead run. Upon the "all clear" signal, Griegos would take the remainder—Lee, Stanley, Akita, Digital, and a grunt—to the imperial family's sleeping quarters. Griegos would leave two grunts behind in the shrine to secure it against incursion.

Twenty minutes later Griegos felt his PHS vibrate twice in his pocket then stop—the "all clear" signal. Now Wallace had control of Wutai's eyes. Griegos made eye contact with his people—dead run time.

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Next obstacle—getting to the imperial family's sleeping quarters. Tseng had supplied this information too, and a plan to go via the kitchens and back staircases. With the monitoring station now in Soldier's hands, they should have an easier time of moving through the palace.

The side door they entered lead directly into the kitchens. Leaving the last grunt to keep guard, Griegos lead his team through a large kitchen complete with tall tables, hanging pots, and glinting knives. At the far swinging double doors, they paused. Griegos and Cho pressed ears to the wooden doors of a butler's pantry, and their enhanced Soldier hearing easily detected a guard breathing on the other side. Griegos signaled Cho to take him out, quick and quiet. Cho pulled a knife from a sheath at his side. He was through the door and slicing the man's throat before the guard took another breath, Stanley right behind him to grab the guard's gun before it clattered to the floor. Cho stood the man against a wall, and Stanley set the gun near his hand. To a cursory inspection, the guard would seem unchanged. Griegos moved ahead. Digital gave Cho an approving nod then moved with Griegos to the next room. This time Digital took out the guard with a garrote he pulled from a pocket, and Akita caught the weapon. With each occupied room, the routine was repeated. Next they moved quietly up the narrow servants' staircase.

Finally, after more rooms and halls, the team arrived at a servant's entrance to the emperor's personal suite. This door, however, was probably booby-trapped. Griegos held his Soldiers back and nodded the Turk forward. Digital, the gnome, smirked, shook his head briefly, then pulled a tiny flashlight from a hidden pocket. Shielding the light with one hand, he panned its tiny beam around the edges. Yep. Locked, alarmed, and trapped, alright. He jerked his head backwards at Griegos who moved all the team members away from the door. Digital then gave the Soldier hand signs for "keep back," "locked," "trapped," "explosives," and "fifteen minutes." Griegos looked at the gnome in shock. Digital smirked as if to say "Yeah, who did you think made up those hand signs in the first place anyway?" Turning back to his project, Digital went to work.

Griegos was surprised, but there was no help for it now. Let the Turk do his job.

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On schedule Digital cracked open the door with no alarms or explosions being heard. Studying the area ahead, the Turk and the Soldier could see that across two rooms a very large, canopied bed stood on a raised dais. Heavy closed draperies hung from the canopy, blocking the bed from sight. Between them and the bed, two guards with machine guns stood facing each other at the end of the second room. Griegos shook his head. The men were too far away to be rushed. Instead Griegos signaled for Stanley, an excellent shot, to take the guards out with his silenced pistol. Griegos and the others crouched in readiness to catch the guards and get to the bed as quickly as they could.

It went as planned. Digital went to the bed first, however, and checked the area for alarms that the emperor could activate. Yes. There was one—easily disposed of. Then they heard it—a ripping belch broke the silence of the suite—followed by a relieved sigh from behind a nearby door. Griegos gave the sign for "scatter." He moved to put his back against the wall nearest where the door would open and pulled his knife while Cho took the other side. If this were the emperor, Griegos wanted to take him alive at all costs. A toilet flushed, and then water ran. Badly off-key humming was next. Griegos and Cho exchanged looks then both shook their heads. Griegos rather thought the song was the Wutainese national anthem, but he wouldn't have put money on that bet. The door between the two Soldiers creaked open, and a tall, broad man with dark hair in a long night shirt stepped from what was clearly a bathroom, yawning, heading in the direction of the bed.

"Don't move." Godo felt a knife at his throat.

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"She's not here!" Godo, his arms bound, struggled to free himself even in the face of several captors. "The princess has gone to join her unit."

"Quiet." Cho pressed his knife closer to Godo's throat. "Rhapsodos?"

Godo pressed his lips tight together in a grimace. "Left three days ago… Didn't even marry her!"

Griegos signed, "enough." Digital plunged a needle into Godo's neck, and the emperor of Wutai toppled sideways into Cho's arms.

Stanley and Digital went to the girl's room, but as Godo had insisted, the princess's quarters were empty. Griegos considered. His orders were to capture both Emperor Godo and Princess Yuffie, but she was nowhere to be found. Perhaps she really was gone. His orders had not specified Rhapsodos. Griegos had hoped to take care of three birds with one stone, but the former Soldier didn't seem to be present. Griegos made a decision. He gave the hand sign for "retreat," and his troops headed to the shrine, and home, with their prize.

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(9 am, Gongaga; 5 am, Wutai; 1 pm, Midgar; 3 pm, Mideel)

In reactor 20, Marcus' entire world was pain. Every sensation began, was, and ended with pain—particularly if he let consciousness creep in. Marcus considered running from the pain, letting it win. Perhaps in the Lifestream there would not be so much pain. But there would be sadness. He could not bear to leave Nathan behind. He didn't think Nathan had left his side. Now he could hear Nathan talking with Bilson. He knew they were desperately worried—and not just about him…

"That explosion ripped him to pieces, Nathan. We were lucky to be able to put him back together with the materia they had on the transport. We've searched the reactor high and low for heal materia. Nothing… I know you can feel him slipping away…" Bilson paused, shook his head, and looked sorrowfully at his friend, "I hate to say it, but… Maybe you should say good-bye while you still can…"

"I can't… I won't accept that, Bilson!" Nathan snarled. "Marcus and I have been together for far too long for me to give up now. He'd sacrifice everything for me. I'm willing to do the same for him…"

"What are you thinking, Nathan? If personal courage could save him, he'd be up and walking now… The transport's been damaged by Matthews' attacks; the monsters are back outside; we've tried civilian channels on the radio and PHSs but all we've learned is that Wutai is in rebellion, every reactor is being hit by monsters, and there was a terrorist bombing last night on the Shinra building in Midgar—no one wants to aid Soldiers or reactor personnel. At this rate, we may all starve..."

"All the more reason to get out of here!" Nathan considered. If Marcus were with them, he was sure they could defeat Matthews and the remainder of his clones and his monsters outside, but again the problem came back to Marcus' life. They were cut off, and the reactor was… the reactor… was… Nathan felt his jaw drop, and he stared aghast at Bilson, then he smiled. Bilson's eyes widened at Nathan's smile. It was the first such smile he'd seen on the lieutenant colonels' face in a week. "How could I be so blind?! Here we are sitting in the middle of a reactor, and we have no materia?! All we have to do is fire it up and make some!"

"Nathan, I don't know anything about running a reactor! Do you?" Bilson was taken aback at the devilish gleam that had just come into Nathan's eye.

"Not a thing, but then…" He shrugged. "How hard can it be?"

If he could have moved, Marcus would have jumped up and objected, but, as it was, he couldn't lift a finger to stop his crazy friend.

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(5 am, Wutai; 9 am, Gongaga; 1 pm, Midgar; 3 pm, Mideel)

Carlos Griegos was angry at the sky. He'd never been angry at something insubstantial before. Like meteors streaking through the atmosphere, trails of ordinance occasionally whitened the pre-dawn darkness on their way to attack his base. The sight was making Griegos sick to his stomach, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Jens Akita, his half-Wutainese third class, was driving a panel truck, their "getaway car." Hidden amidst the fruits and vegetables they were hauling, was Griegos' team and their prize, Emperor Godo, still unconscious. The team was now moving back in the direction of the base. They were a fair distance south of the direct line to the base, however, as they headed toward their copse of trees with its tunnel entrance.

Suddenly Griegos felt the truck lurch slightly and slow. "Colonel, could you come up here?" Akita spoke through a grill.

"What is it?" Griegos scrambled around crates and then carefully stepped over Analog with an apologetic smile at her before looking out through the grill.

"Up there. There's a car stopped on the side of the road."

"What of it? Just go around it."

"Well, sir, I could be mistaken, but doesn't it have imperial flags on its fenders?"

Griegos had to admit his vision was blurry, but when he narrowed his eyes, he could see the young man was right. He started to laugh softly, even slightly hysterically. "By George, you're right. We're going to call you eagle-eye from now on, Akita." Griegos turned to his team. "Everyone, get ready. There's a diplomatic car up ahead. We're going to check it out."

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The panel truck pulled up nearly alongside the car staying in the road, rather than stopping behind it, and lighting the front of the car while keeping the truck in shadows. Akita put down the window. "Hey. You need any help over there?"

Two men in the military uniforms of Wutai were bent over an open engine compartment with a flashlight looking puzzled. One glared up hostilely at the young man in the truck, but the other flashed a quick smile and said, "Yeah, thanks! You know anything about engines? I think it's the battery, but I'm not sure."

"Not me, but my cousin in the back does. Just hang on a minute, and I'll get another flashlight." Akita turned to the grill and called so the Wutainese troops could hear, "Souma! We're gonna help these guys. Might be the battery." Akita leaned over as if opening the glove box but took out a flashlight from one of his pockets instead. "Come on."

Akita rounded the front of the truck, purposely shining the light in the men's eyes. Cho Lee, Akita's "cousin," jumped out of the back of the van. With the light in their faces, the men couldn't tell that Cho wasn't Wutainese; nor did they see the other Soldiers and Turks who silently jumped out of the back of the truck and initially stayed on its far side. With twelve-on-two odds, however, the Wutainese soldiers didn't stand a chance and were quickly silenced.

"All right. Let's see what we've got in here." Griegos had joined Akita at the car while the others took up defensive positions about the two automobiles. He signed for Akita to open the car door then shone in a flashlight.

Inside, a sleeping teenaged girl stirred, held her hand up to the light, and slitted open her eyes. "What's wrong, Gojo?"

"Sorry. I'm Akita. My cousin and I stopped to help fix your engine. We should be done in a few minutes. Are you okay?"

"Fine." The girl closed her eyes, put her cheek on her joined hands in the corner of the seat, and gave every indication of going right back to sleep.

Akita closed the door, looked up at his commander, and was startled at what he saw... There was such a look of happiness on Col. Griegos' face as Akita would not have thought possible with the Soldier base under assault. The colonel was beaming at him. "Mr. Akita. You are brilliant!"

"Hunh? I'm sorry, sir, but… what?"

Griegos' smile broadened at Akita's confusion. "Don't you think you should invite Princess Yuffie to join us on our trip home?"

A/N— I want to say thank you to everyone who made comments and suggestions about my 22nd week of pregnancy situation. You've given me much food for thought! Some things I'd already considered, and some were completely new angles! THANKS AGAIN!

For Bjanik and anyone else who is "angsting" about Reno and Rude—tune in next week!

On a completely unrelated topic, has anyone out there wondered about this? When you have a planet without earth-type animals, how can you "kill two birds with one stone," have "eagle eyes," or "spider climb," much less have cows to avoid? Indeed, without pigs or ponies, how can you have "pigtails" or "ponytails"? Do you suppose that spiky hair is the Gaians' way of imitating chocobo feathers? Angeal Valentine tells me that I can use the earth-animal phrases more in the style of "translations," and that "Mom, Gaia does have worms, so you can have 'wormholes' though they're about sixty feet across." It probably doesn't matter at all, but I just thought I'd ask…