"Keep weight off your arm and it will heal in a few days. Your perfectly fine otherwise." I thanked the airships medic and left. Once again I was happy finding a decent doctor in Gaia. I had somewhat of a biased opinion since the only two scientists that had any focus in the game both were maniacal and were the catalysts for the destruction happening now. Good to know not all of them have mental problems.
I had gotten anxious as time passed more and more. I didn't know whether Cid would be able to stop the train or not. I did give him all of the necessary details. But then again I should have more faith in the guy. He was picked for some reason or another to be the team leader.
"Hey Nate." I looked back to see Yuffie running up to me. "They're back, everyone else is in the operation room right now. We're waiting." I nodded and followed her back towards the operations room. Inside I saw everyone including Barret, Vince, and a very irate looking Cid. Immediately I panicked.
"Did the train crash?!"
"Nope." Suddenly I felt all of the air inside my lungs force itself out as I fell down from Cids hit.
"You said it would be easy. I fucking went crazy trying to force those levers and I came this close from turning into paste. We're even now." He folded his arms and looked down at me. I couldn't form any words and just used him as a wall to get back up.
"...Okay I deserved that." I did make it sound too easy. I shouldn't downplay something as serious as the possibility of a destroyed village.
"But we saved the day I guess, we got an Ultima materia and that huge one too." Looking passed the gruff man I saw one of the huge materia. It was the blue one that gave the group the Bahamut Zero materia. Kind of odd considering it was a summoning materia. Maybe color didn't matter when you have over 300 times the power of a regular materia.
"Its so cool." I saw a glint in Yuffie's eye when she looked at the huge materia. I really couldn't blame her. The Huge materia was radiating something from it, I don't know if it was magic or what but it had a presence to itself.
"I had to help the big guy carry it, fuckers heavy as shit. But the brutes a hero now so I guess everything's good." I looked over to Barret who didn't give me full eye contact and tried to focus on the Huge materia.
"Good, then we have time for the next hit."
"Fort Condor." Vincent stated, I nodded.
"Kunsel said we had a few days to get there. I say we fuel up and stay a night near Corel. And in the morning we go to Fort Condor and help the troops prepare."
"Troops?" Cid asked.
"Shinra is going to storm the fort in order to get the other Huge materia inside the birds nest. They would send MP's, some monsters, and a Grand Horn in the end to take down everyone.
"A Grand Horn?" Cait sounded surprised. "Those things are too dangerous, they gave even SOLDIER's a run for their money."
"Well Kunsel also said we had a few of those too. Shinra is getting serious and is even sending a few SOLDIER squads to the place." Everyone was wide eyed at that.
"How are we going to be able to stop groups of SOLDIER's?" Yuffie asked.
"It does seem like a challenge to think about fighting SOLDIER head on" Nanaki added.
"Then take it as one. Guys, we're eventually going to fight the biggest and baddest member of Shinra. If each of us can't take on at least one SOLDIER head on that's even second class we can forget about even attempting to strike Sephiroth. I was ale to beat three because they were disorganized, they underestimated me, and the bad ones were arrogant. I don't believe we'll be facing firsts, but it would help in telling how far we came along." I had faith in everyone, but if no one could take on at least a second class by themselves or with one teammate then I was sure they couldn't help fight off Sephiroth.
"Wait, that means we're going in the front lines?" Cid asked.
"I don't want the people from Fort Condor dying off. I think most of the people they have fight for them are mercenary's, but a few of the residence are thrown into the fray as well." Everyone looked serious at the possibility of taking on multiple troops as well as monsters. I understood though, none of us had really been in an all out battle with multiple monsters and MP's, just small squads or packs that would attack here and there.
"Alright then, everybody rest up. Tomorrow we're all going to Fort Condor." Cid announced.
"But I want to hit up a few places first."
"Great, now what?"
"Cid this is going to help us. Could you get me a map of Gaia?" Cid grumbled but walked over to another side of the table before pulling out a map from underneath.
"Where are we going?" Cait asked.
"I know where a few materia are that are going to be useful in the future." I unrolled the paper. I was pleased to see it was exactly like the minimap from the game. Expect for the few unmarked islands I knew would be useful in the future.
"Since we only have tomorrow to do this we can't get the best one, but we can get the ones here, here, and here." I pointed to the location of three materia caves. Cid took a look at the map before he took a hit from his smoke.
"Alright, tomorrow we'll get the extra materia. If he says is worth it then its worth it." I would have thought he would have argued about there not being any grassland to land on.
"Alright meeting adjourned, everyone get back to what you were doing." Everyone had filed out of the room.
"Yo Nate." Looking around I saw Barret standing by one of the walls.
"What?"
"I wanted to say thanks. If you didn't give us any hints Corel might have...just thanks." The big guy walked away before I could get a word in. I shrugged before I walked off. I felt my stomach grumble before I left for the airships mess hall. Thinking about it the Highwind had a lot more rooms than the game made it look like. It had accommodation rooms for over thirty people, as well as a large enough mess hall to hold all of them. In fact I bet I'm missing a few extra rooms for storage and other stuff.
It was probably a good idea to stay in Corel to get supplies. The chef of the ship was starting to run low on supplies and I didn't want to eat monster again. I still remember the Cokatolis from the first time we were in Corel. It wasn't bad but I don't want to eat something that might have eaten a person at one point in its life again.
"Hey Nate." Yuffie waved me over to a spot she was sitting at. Already half done with her food.
"Yo, what you need?" I sat down.
"I wanted to talk to you."
"About...?"
"Well about you." I raised an eyebrow. "Everything you told me about yourself was a lie. I don't hold you against it but now I don't know anything about your past. I want to though."
"Well...I was born in a state called Colorado."
"State?" She asked, I sighed.
"Maybe I should start with a little history. The United states consists of..." So me and Yuffie talked for a good while about earth. I told her about the multiple factions of government, how is was much bigger than Gaia was, and the similarity s from one region to another.
"So you have people like Wutaians on earth?"
"They take up a larger amount of the population, I believe over fifty percent. Your people are actually based on them."
"Do they speak the same language?" Now she seemed excited.
"Actually that's what confuses the hell out of me with Wutaians. I thought they would adopt one of the dialects from Asia. Yet when I've heard you speak I've heard bits and pieces of at least three different Asian languages. Its kind of like the one civilization that started it all, only in reverse." We eventually moved on to where I was born and what my family was like. I told her about my mom and dad, as well as the multitude of brothers that I had. I told her more about myself including quarks such as my obsession with sweets.
"Is that why I always saw you drinking that cola stuff like the one I gave you?" I nodded.
"It was just like one drink on earth, only more carbonated. It reminded me of home a little."
"A soda reminded you of home?"
"Hey I missed everything when I got here, not just my family and life. But all of the small things too. Yuffie lets say you love multiple brands of chocolates and sweets you've lived with damn near all of your life. Then suddenly your in a place that has never even heard of any of these brands." She had a thoughtful look.
"That makes sense, I would go crazy if some of the stuff in Wutai I loved didn't exist."
"Well what kind of stuff?" The conversation then shifted to Yuffie. She told me about a few of her favorite dishes from Wutai and eventually shifted to her childhood.
"You left home at nine years old?" She told me after the Wutai war she had decided to leave home.
"I was already the great ninja that I was then, I just thought I needed worldly experience." Okay, I'm calling bullshit before she starts anymore of this.
"You constantly pestered one SOLDIER to investigate caves so you could snatch the materia from him or con money out of him." She seemed to freeze when I mentioned that.
"...How much do you know about everyone again?"
"You are almost exactly like your nine year old self. Only now you have some skill to back up that bravado." I said smugly.
"That's no fun you know stuff about me like that!" She shouted. She had a smile on so I knew she was only kidding.
"Not my fault. Its kind of funny though that you pestered that specific SOLDIER though." She looked confused before I continued. "That was Zack, Aeris boyfriend as well as Clouds best friend." Her eyes were almost the size of saucers when I said that.
"Really? That guy got around." She said, sitting down.
"Zack was very prominent before he died. In fact he tried to stop all of this at some point in his life."
"Its just weird how you know so much about each of us. Its stalker-ish."
"Hey reading about you guys is not stalking. It was a decent story, not my fault it got into all of the details."
"Its just weird though, do you know how you even got here?" I shook my head.
"I don't know, one minute I'm enjoying myself and the next I'm lying down in the garbage of Midgar." I stopped thinking about how I got he some time ago, I decided when everything was said and done with I would investigate as much as I could into how I got here...maybe a way to see my family again. But now's not the time, I got bigger problems to work out. Maybe Yuffie could help me with a few of those problems.
"Hey Yuffie, I could use your help on something."
"What?"
"I want you to help me brainstorm ideas to help Cloud get back to normal?"
"How am I going to do that?"
"Well your the youngest of the groups besides me, plus your all conniving and clever so maybe we can come up with an idea together." Yuffie does have a different mindset being younger. Thank god she's childish.
"I...guess I can help. What is it?" I told her about the situation Cloud was in, and how he was supposed to get his original personality back in the Lifestream under Aeris' protection.
"Why can't she do that now?"
"Well because she isn't dead."
"But she's a Cetra, what can she do?"
"Well she can..." I started. But I got to thinking about what she said. I had absolutely no idea how Cetra used their powers. Besides Aeris' limit breaks and how she was able to communicate to Cloud from beyond the grave I knew nothing about the powers of the Cetra. For all I know they were fucking jedi's and could use their powers and junk.
Yeah, fat chance of that. But thinking about this maybe Aeris has some power over Mako.
"Yuffie, your a mad genius!" I reached over the table and hugged her before running off to find Aeris. It didn't take long to find her looking out the bridge window.
"Aeris, I need you for a minute, your not doing anything right?" Before she could answer I continued.
"Aeris, what can you do?"
"What do you mean?" She looked very confused.
"I mean as a Cetra, what are your abilities?"
"I can speak to the Planet and...and can hear the voices of other dead Cetra in the temple and city."
"Nothing else?"
"What do you mean."
"Aeris I was thinking about the situation, and I realized that you were very powerful when you died, yet you never fully explored your powers when you were alive. No one, including yourself, knows the full extent of a Cetra's power."
"So we don't know what I can do to that didn't involve my death?"
"Exactly, maybe if you listened to the Planet more, or tried to communicate to it, you might have ability's you never knew about."
"Then maybe I could still help Tifa and Cloud when they are in the Lifestream." She concluded. I knew Aeris was way smart.
"Yep."
"But how can I figure out my powers?"
"That...I did not think of." My shoulders slumped from the thought.
"Its okay Nathan, you had a good idea." She patted my back and gave me an earnest smile.
"Maybe if you try to talk to the Planet more. If you can do anything for me try to talk to the Planet as much as possible. If its just jumbled voices then try to understand them. If you can do that for me Aeris then I would be happy."
"I will try." Say said. I nodded before I left. Now I had some semblance of a plan to keep Cloud and Tifa alive and still have him get his mind back. But I need to make sure everything else is working out. I pulled out my new PHS and called Kunsel. It rang for a few seconds before a somewhat scratchy voice came on the other end.
"Hello?"
"Kunsel, its me. Has there been anymore information on Fort Condor?"
"Not much, but they did set a date for the attack."
"When?"
"Three days from now. The still need to fly in a few more monsters and troops. They're really wanting to go all out to get whatever it is they need." Okay so two days from tomorrow. We should be able to prepare well enough to counter the attack.
"Thanks for the info...also have you heard anything about a train getting robbed at some point today." I shrugged.
"Wait, did I hear you right?" Was the staticy response.
"We just took a very important item from Shinra and it was on a train. I just want to know if you heard anything about it."
"You guys held up a train? Man you work fast. I didn't hear anything about a train getting hit though." Perfect.
"Thank you Kunsel, I just needed that information. Call me up when anything new comes up." I hung up. If Kunsel didn't know then I could infer that the Turks didn't know. And if they didn't, Rufus was behind on it too. I bet it would take another day or so before the information circulates, possibly more considering the train had to travel through the mountains. If all went according to plan then Shinra wouldn't know about the first Huge materia missing until right when we stole the second.
"The day could only be better if I didn't have a piece of crap phone." I really wish Reeve would give me back my stuff. I missed all of my old music and my regular crappy phone. I decided to go practice with Fusion and try to remember a few more attacks from other games to keep my mind off of the subject.
The very next day the Highwind started for North of Corel. The trip didn't take long, about thirty minutes or so before we had found the rocky ground. Everyone was on the bridge waiting to land.
"So where is this special materia?" Yuffie asked me.
"Its in a cave in a mountain, I told Cid to land near it and we can search for it. Hopefully it continues to be easy and the cave isn't hidden."
"Was there a different way to get the materia?" Aeris asked.
"It was actually optional for you guys to get these materia. Depending on your builds they could have been really powerful. But to get them you needed to breed river crossing Chocobo, then mountain crossing, breed those two together, then the biggest one would be an ocean crossing one.
"Those are pretty rare breeds lad. Those would take a few years to make." Cait said. But then again no one accounts for side questing time.
"Alright, take the ladders down and go find your materia. But if you take to long I will leave you here." Cid announced. To be safe most of the team went down and started to explore the area. It was very rocky and uneven to walk on. It was more work to get to the cave than to search for it.
"Its over here!" Barret yelled, some ways away from the group. Walking over we saw the opening in the mountain and walked inside.
The cave was more breathtaking than the mythril mines. The entire inside was a brilliant purple with a single gem glowing in the middle of the entire room.
"Dibs." Yuffie called.
"And there went my moment. Thank you so much for ruining it Yuffie." She ignored me and walked over to the purple materia and plucked it from its stone pedestal.
"What does that one do?" Nanaki asked
"This materia switches the persons life energy with there own magical energy." I said. Most of the groups eyes bugged out.
"I've never heard of a materia that did that." Cait said.
"How long has that been in this cave?" Aeris asked, looking at the independent type materia.
"I don't know, what does time have to do with it?" I asked.
"Materia gains its powers with condensing Mako over time. The longer its been condensing, the different powers it has. An ability such as this for a purple materia could take upwards of twenty years." Damn, I never knew that. So how long has the Knights of the round materia been sitting on that island? Its not even charted so it could have been there for hundreds of years for all I know.
"Do different types take different lengths?" Yuffie asked Nanaki.
"Yes, unique materia like this for magic could take fifty years. A one of a kind summon would take an untold amount of time."
"Well how useful could this thing be?" Barret asked. I decided to explain.
"Barret take me for example. I have an average amount of endurance and health before I could get tired or die from attacks. But I have a crap ton of magic. So if I switched it around..." I let Barret think about it before it clicked.
"You'd have the energy of a damn dragon. But some weak magic." Barret finished.
"Exactly. Now come on. Cid's getting impatient, and we have to head to Wutai." Everyone followed me out of the cave and back onto the Highwind. We had flown for about an hour before we landed on some dead grassland. The cave was visible this time since it was the mountain to the east instead of the west.
This cave was different from the last. The dominant color was yellow. Sandstone seemed to make up the walls while a light colored gravel took up most of the floor. A yellow gem was in the middle this time. Cait decided to pick up the materia this time.
"This one is mime. It copies the last thing a person you saw did."
"How useful will that be just to copy someone." Yuffie asked.
"If someone has a magic materia that is really useful against a monster and no one else does. Mime will allow you to copy that magic as long as it was the last thing you saw."
"Quite handy indeed." Cait added.
"Where to next?" Vincent asked.
"We need to go back to one of the islands near Mideel, then we go to Fort Condor." Everyone was back on the airship. The trip would be longer now since we basically had to circle the world to get the next secret materia. So now I would have to wait an extended amount of time before getting off again.
You know, I haven't bothered Vincent in a good long time. He's hanging around somewhere. I just know it.
"Excuse me." I was suddenly bumped into by the man. I took a second to steady myself before I ran after him.
"Hey Vince wait up." The man only stopped for a moment before continuing. I followed the man until we were on the bridge. To conserve fuel Cid was going at a leisurely pace to the next cave. There was a strong breeze but people could stand on the deck.
"What are you doing out here." I asked. He didn't answer and instead took out one of his pistols and loaded it up.
"Practice." He said simply before holding his gun up and looking out into the distance. I gave him an odd look before I heard an odd sort of call out in the distance.
"Let me guess, that's the target?" He nodded. I bent over the railing and saw one of the giant owl looking monsters flying below.
"I ask Cid to fly low enough for me to practice." He said. Aiming his pistol and firing. The shot rang out and the monster fell to the ground.
"Why would you need to practice? You wake up after thirty years and you could most likely shoot a fly's wings off. I don't see the reason why you need to practice."
"Even I have to keep my skills up to par, much like the rest of the team. Now, why are you here?" He said, looking around for another target.
"I realized I don't talk to you to much besides the occasional chat, so I thought I could rectify that."
"There isn't anything that needs to be said."
"Now Vincent come on, I know I pulled a dick move back at Medeel but cut me some slack. I'm preparing everyone for when we fight the harder monsters. Plus I think it was good, I got to see that stone cold facade crumble for just a few seconds." He didn't respond so I continued talking.
"Come on, tell me about yourself."
"You already know about mine."
"No, I know you were a Turk and were locked up. What were you like growing up? What were your parents like?" Again no response. I huffed and leaned my head into my hand. For a full twenty minutes I sat on the deck as Vincent would take random shots out of the airship.
"You won't leave will you?" He finally said.
"I could pull a Yuffie and keep talking. But we both know you don't want that. Now come on, at least give me something." He took a few more shots before he started reloading his gun.
"I don't remember much of my life. Hojo's experiments took them away from me." He finished befor looking over the edge again.
"I grew up in Midgar...I believe my father was a researcher and my mother...was Wutaian." His voice sounded strained as he searched through his memories.
"We lived an average life. I was quiet, obedient, I did everything my parents said. My mother was soft spoken, my father was a fast talker."
"What were their names?" His eyes narrowed before he stopped looking over the edge. Practice was over now.
"I don't remember." He stated. He looked at his pistol. "I do remember the first time I shot a gun. I hit the center of my target on the first try. I think my father tried to teach me to get even better. A few years later I was scouted by Shinra."
"That's when you started working for them?" He shook his head.
"I was put through the military academy. I was a weapons specialist. I was proficient with all of them. It wasn't until I was twenty three I was formally inducted into the Turks. It was new then, we were still called the Department of Administrative Research. All Turks worked in pairs, my partners name was Verdot, the leader at the time." I thought about his partner. It was the same guy from the Before Crisis game, I wonder where he's at now, I know the other Turks from that game are in hiding.
"I rose through the ranks quickly, having almost as much pull as Verdot himself. But I was given that one mission to protect samples for doctor Hojo." His voice grew colder at the name.
"Tell me something. Why don't you use materia besides the deathblow I gave you?" I quickly changed the subject.
"When I joined Shinra materia were used sparingly. I was one of the few that chose not to rely on them."
"What about a PHS, I don't see you with one of those."
"I don't care for one, if you need to find me I will let you." Man, Vincent doesn't like new things. I don't see him using anything besides his guns.
"Why don't you answer one of my questions now." He said.
"I'm listening."
"How far is your world without the help of materia? Is it less advanced, or more?" He sounded genuinely curious.
"I think more. We don't have monster problems so we have spread across our world more. And even without magic we still made some devastating weapons. I'd say our atomic bomb would rival quite a few summons." He rose an eyebrow.
"What is an atomic bomb?"
"To put it simply, its a bomb that uses nuclear fission or fusion and has enough power to vaporize an entire town, including its people. It literally doesn't leave a trace of anything after the explosion."
"...Then your world must have more powerful things than monsters to fight." He deducted.
"No, the only thing we have been fighting is ourselves. The only notable war in this world was the Wutaian War, we have had countless ones."
"Was your world ever threatened like ours?"
"Nope, we've never come this close to having our world end. We don't have any scientists with the capacity to take over Earth. The way we're designed almost makes it so no one has even a chance at trying to take over the world. In fact its illegal to have a monopoly on earth, something Shinra has quite a few of." Vincent nodded before he went to the door.
"Its seems both of our worlds could learn a lesson from the other." He said before exiting.
"I guess so." I mumbled to myself.
Later we were off of the Highwind again. This time on a small island just north of the one Medeel was on. Inside the cave it actually seemed the most normal. It had jiggered brown colored rocks and a bunch of sand on the ground since it was right next to the beach.
"Now this is more up mine or Aeris alley." I plucked the blue materia. " This is quadra magic. When paired with a magic materia it casts that spell four times in a row. Good for quick succession yeah?"
"I think you should give that to Aeris, you have more than enough materia as is." Nanaki said.
"Well whats one more going to hurt?"
"Nathan you do know why we only have one armlet to use materia? When you equip them they increase certain attributes and decrease others." I thought that was just a part of the game...then if that's true.
"I'm fighting at half strength most of the time aren't I?" I realized.
"Its okay Nathan, not everyone knows how to properly balance materia. It takes time." Aeris assured. I gave her the support materia and walked out of the cave.
"We burned out most of the day everyone. We need to get to Fort Condor fast. Lets go!"