I am soooooo sorry for not updating! I've had problems with my internet (and an overall apathy towards fanfiction writing), but now I hope I can start getting more time to update all of my stories. But expect a lot of oneshots. I just can't think of anything but little tidbits of stories... Can anyone say writer's block...? Anyway, thanks to everyone who's reviewed thus far! Please R&R!

PS- the opening quote is from Kuja. I'm such a fangirl...

Chapter 11- Yume

I find this rain quite pleasant. It feels as though raindrops are blessing this victory…

((((()))))

All at once, the barren area split into open battle. Broken apart from any reunions, the Light Warriors quickly paired up with whoever was closer to take on the new enemies swarming in.

"Darn," Yuna grunted, dodging magic blasts from Xande, "I should have asked Cosmos to leave me a few Aeons!" She flipped over Kain, tight in battle with Gilgamesh, and fired her guns at the surrounding assailants.

The gunner suddenly froze at all too familiar roar.

"Bahamut," Garnet called out, "go full out, but try not to kill anyone!"

"Bahamut?" Yuna asked herself, looking at, indeed, the Aeon she used to summon on her journey. The breath knocked out of her as Tifa shoved her out of the way of a sword slash from Leon.

Rinoa, not far behind the martial artist, cast a shielding magic over the two. She quickly turned to Celes and shouted, "Um, you, the blonde woman!"

Celes turned slightly, still keeping a wary eye on Garland, the old man who seemed to have telekinesis powers. "Yes?"

"That weird wizard guy is right behind you. I need to distract him as I prepare a spell, okay?" Celes swirled around to see Zemus, throwing out fire balls by the dozen. And I get all of the fun ones, eh? Celes gripped her sword tighter and charged the mage, taking his attention away from Lenna, who hastily thanked the soldier and rushed off to help Arc, fighting against Seymour.

Skidding to a halt behind Bartz, Lenna exclaimed, "Bartz! So this is where you've been all along!"

Bartz turned away from Jecht, spinning on his heel towards the princess. "Oh, hi, Lenna! How've you been?"

At the same time, both unfortunately unnoticed by the two, Zidane and Arc called out, "BACK-UP!"

"Oh, I've been great, actually!" Lenna ecstatically continued, slightly bouncing from excitement. "Krile and Kelger and Faris come to visit all the time, and-"

"BARTZ KLAUSER! GET YOUR BUTT OVER HERE!"

"-that stupid tree was finally burned down! TAKE THAT," Lenna shouted to Exdeath.

Bartz nodded, equally ecstatic. "About time! You know, I've always wondered why we never burned it the first place. That would have so much more-"

"OWW, MY EYE! BARTZ KLAUSER, YOU NASTY SON OF A-!"

The wanderer finally turned to scowl at Zidane. "Hold on a minute, I'm talking to Lenna. So, like I was saying…."

((((()))))

"You never had to hit me that hard, Zidane," Bartz muttered upon waking up in a hastily made campsite.

The thief glared back at him, immediately wincing from the black eye he had. Garnet turned his chin back to her. "Why is it that I can't ever see you without some sort of injury?"

They all groaned as he smoothly replied, "How else am I supposed to get close to a white mage?"

Garnet stifled her giggle and went over to Cloud, sporting not only one black eye but two, both courtesy of Tifa upon seeing him. "…always like this," the blonde seethed, sitting next to the fire Arc had made. The boy had fared well enough during the battle, but did have some hard feelings against Lenna now. As he later quoted: "Stupid girl! Enuo almost caught my cape on fire!"

Yuna grinned and laid her head on Tidus's shoulder, the two also sitting by the fire. "This feels awfully familiar…," the jock started, kissing her hair.

"Besaid. When you were the 'amnesia' stricken heretic."

"Guilty as charged," he laughed.

Away from the sappy scene, Squall finally escaped the crowded camp and embraced Rinoa, the latter going on and on of how much she had missed him.

It didn't take but two minutes for Zidane and Bartz to interrupt this moment.

"Ooh, look guys!" Zidane crowed.

Snickering, Bartz shouted, "Squallie's kissin' Rinoa!"

The two then burst into song: "Squall and Rinoa, out in Dissidia, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

Squall gave Rinoa an apologetic smile. "Excuse me for a minute, Rinoa."

She nodded, fully understanding.

Gunblade drawn and eyes fiery, Squall chased after the two, shouting out things that made Terra and Maria cover Arc and Luneth's ears.

"Please, Squall," Firion sighed, coming to sit with his half-sister, "let's not ruin the day with two bloody pulps, alright?"

"What!" Maria burst, spitting out the hot cocoa she had just took a drink of. "H-he's really not going to hurt those two, is he?"

She poked his arm after having silence as her only reply. "He isn't, right, Firion?"

Rinoa giggled and rolled her eyes. "Naw, Squall isn't that-"

Two very girlish screams interrupted the sorceress. Slowly furrowing her eyebrows, Rinoa corrected, "Perhaps Squall isn't that bad. Today it seems he's in a bad mood. We'll be lucky if we can find any part of them that isn't completely decimated."

Lenna's jaw dropped. But, instead of rushing off to save Bartz, she rounded on Cecil. "Aren't you going to stop that leather-crazy maniac!"

"M-me?" Cecil stuttered, wide-eyed at being drawn into the conversation on such quick notice.

Kain rolled his eyes. "I'll be back," he promised over his shoulder, jumping away.

Sure enough, soon after Kain walked back, dragging along Bartz and Zidane by the back of their shirts. "This belongs to you," he said, dropping Bartz at Lenna's feet, "and this one is yours."

With a sigh, Kain then leaned back against a cliffside. "This is such an interesting bunch you've found, Cecil."

The Lunarian wryly grinned. "You just have to get to know them."

"And learn to deal with their pig-headedness! Honestly, Cloud, couldn't you have gotten Cosmos to send even a darned postcard telling m- er, us where you were?" Tifa butted in, looking pointedly at Cloud.

As soon as Cloud murmured, "I see you haven't had your daily hug," the camp exploded into laughter.

((((()))))

Kuja's eye twitched as they ranted on and on.

"This is your headquarters?" Garland disdainfully scoffed at the broken castle. "And oh ho, what is this? A velvet throne?"

Seymour frowned, thankfully keeping his thoughts to himself.

"A rat hole for sure," Edea wholly agreed.

"And just WHO asked you freaks!"

The newest warriors, Jecht, and Kuja turned in mute silence at Kefka. The clown hovered about five feet from the floor, legs crossed Indian-style, floating upside-down. Righting himself, he continued. "This is actually a pretty nice place, if I do say so myself. Really, we could be like those little brats and have a camping trip everyday!"

Leon narrowed his eyes at the clown. "That 'little brat' is my sister."

Kefka mockingly burst into tears. "Oh no, your sister! How tragic! The horror! The awful atrocity-"

"Just shut up, Kefka," the Cloud of Darkness sighed, hand on her forehead to ward off a growing headache. "Most of us would like to keep our sanity, as well as our dignity. Even though it appears that some of us are lacking those two very assets."

He frowned at her but eventually drifted into silence.

Garland finally set aside his giant sword and laced his fingers. "Now then, on to business. What shall we do to the other side this week?"

"You've got to be kidding me," Bikke deadpanned. "You mean to say that you don't even have a master plan to banish light forever and completely obliterate the enemy?"

Their armored leader cocked an eyebrow. "You said you were… Bikke, correct?"

"…Yar."

Finally, after a slow nod, Garland turned to Edea. "Ultimecia has told me of your illusionary powers. What exactly are you able to perform?"

Edea dipped her head and flashed dark red for the briefest moment before transforming into Garland himself. "Is this well enough?" she asked in his gruff voice.

"…Interesting. And you, Xande, was it?" Garland continued to the dark-skinned mage. "What are your powers?"

"I have power over the four crystals."

Garland took the time to think something up.

The others followed suit.

Surprisingly, it was Kuja who spoke. "Isn't this obvious? We have two transforming witches, one of which who has power over time and space like this old geezer, as well as a young man who could easily woo his sister into falling into a trap."

The Emperor's eyebrows shot up. "I see where you're going with this. That is actually a… half-decent plan."

The genome flipped his hair and airily replied, "I destroyed half of the world by myself. I am more than just an actor, I'll have you know."

Jecht had many things to say to that comment, but refrained from doing so. But dropping a "you're gay" bomb in the middle of a meeting would not go over well with the boss. Instead he gravely mentioned, "But there's ten more of the brats. If we could barely handle the first bunch, what's going to make much of a difference this time?"

Kuja laughed. "This time, we know exactly how to cripple them."

((((()))))

When it came down to the matter of cooking, it was unanimous choice of Terra and Tifa, both who the group was certain couldn't catch something on fire as easily as the others. Watch duty was given to Kain, since he had virtually done the job all afternoon.

The others were left only to sleep or plan a retaliation.

Garnet sighed after having listened to Rinoa's various plans involving a massive takeover of enemy forces using strong armies and complete and unrelenting destructive attacks. It took many corrections from Squall before she ultimately understood that they were alone. The princess silently hooked her arm through Zidane's and said, "I don't like all of the magic they have on their side. We have too little of a defense against them with only five us knowing black magic."

"I know," Zidane sighed. "It'd be easier with Vivi."

"And Ingus, too. He was a red mage like you," Arc said to the Mage of Light.

She cocked her head thoughtfully for a moment, thinking back to Black Mage (what a horrible addition that rotten being would be) and Red Mage- now having her former occupation as White Mage. Even Thief would have been a good member of their team with his experience on all things magical, considering how he had stolen most of it.

Mage turned to Bartz. "You're a mimic, correct?"

At his confused nod, she continued. "What would it take to copy all of our powers and use them against the enemy?"

"Uh… a lot of time and pain?" he scoffed. "Geez, I can only copy one attack and weapon at a time. I'm not like Ultimecia."

The Mage of Light's eyebrows rose. "Ultimecia can mimic actions as well?"

"Technically," the Onion Knight started, looking away from the drowsy fire, "she can transform into other people. She pulled a trick like that once on Zidane, looking like Cosmos and telling him to go into enemy territory to save Bartz."

The thief frowned. "Don't remind me," he dryly said.

"You've been in with the enemy? What other powers do they have?"

Zidane went into a deep thought. "Garland has a sword bigger than Cloud's mammoth, the Emperor likes to set up traps with magic, the Cloud of Darkness basically uses black magic and her two snake things, Golbez has the power over freaking darkness, Exdeath uses 'the void', Kefka has magic and the creepiest face ever, Sephiroth has a katana that I'm sure can slice through all twenty of us easily in one swipe, Ultimecia has power over time and can transform into different things, Kuja has a lot of magic and can fly, and Jecht is super fast with a shovel-sword thing. The other Garland, I know, has power over time and kinesis. I don't really know too much about the others."

They were all silent for a while. Celes quietly drew her sword and started to polish it, having nothing else to do. All of the teary reunions were over; and the real battle had just begun.