"Do the Undying not know about the fact that Cid's dead? I mean...Sanbreque announced that clearly within the first days of executing him, or at least having seen his body anyways"

"I also find it strange that the Undying wouldn't know that information, they should know it all things considered, them telling Joshua is another story though"

"Oh?"

"Yes, I learned that they found out about my possible survival two years after Phoenix Gate and confirmed it was me five years after that day, but they didn't tell Joshua about it until about a year before I met Cid and by that point..."

"By that point it would have been impossible to get you out of the Empire's lands, even when they had confirmed your survival it would have been difficult"

"Exactly, meeting with Joshua will be dangerous but...due to this letter it's needed, shall I tell Jill and have it be a reunion between old friends and family?"

"Yes, I doubt she would forgive you if you didn't at least give her the option"

Ultimately Jill decides to stay behind in the Hideaway and so Clive and Dion are the only ones who meet up with Joshua at Martha's Rest

"It's good to see you again, where's Jill?"

"Decided to stay at the Hideaway, Joshua, what do you know about the outside world at this point in time?"

"That Dion is dead, that's pretty much all I know due to the fact that the Undying are trying to find out all they can about Ultima, but they had a few people at Dion's funeral, they left soon afterwords for their own safety though"

"I see..Lady Jote, is there anything in regards to what's happened in Sanbreque since the Prince's death that the Undying know about and yet haven't told Joshua?"

"No, we felt it too risky to send anyone back in at any point, not even as a merchant on an annual trip eager to hear any news"

"I see...then you should know that Cid, the Dominant of Ramuh is dead, killed by the Emperor for his son's death, though the Emperor doesn't know that he actually was the one to kill him"

"Wait...if Cid's dead then who?..."

Dion steps forward and lowers the hood of his cloak while speaking

"Hello...Sir Margrace"

"You're...but how? I was told you were dead"

"It was planned, I'll explain later in private but what Sanbreque believes to be the truth was an elaborate lie, one I concocted so that I could work with the Hideaway much easier to fight Ultima much sooner than I originally had"

"I see, then wait...was Cid originally..."

"Alive when brought before the Emperor?, yes, though members of the Guardians acting like bounty hunters claimed to have killed him, but it was all makeup and a very, very good drug that Sir Wade knew about"

"What went wrong?"

"The Emperor decided to put a spear through Cid's heart for revenge, Ramuh...took Cid's body in a bolt of lightening, there wasn't even something available for burial"

"I see"

"By the way, have you seen uncle at any time?"

"No, it's been too dangerous to let him know I'm alive, if he sees me...he'll know and that will put him in danger"

"I get it...I really do, while I told uncle immediately it was only because I was not a bearer or seriously wounded from that night, and then there's the fact that in the original timeline I didn't see him again until five years after Cid's death, but I think it would do him good to see you. He knows you're alive Joshua since I told him, and Sir Wade about the time travel back when everything first started in this timeline and I can tell he misses you and wants to see you for himself"

"When did you tell uncle?"

"During the time we were establishing the Hideaway, which took about three years, I did it carefully and over the course of several visits but I told him"

"I see"

Eventually though Clive suddenly gave Joshua a long and intense hug which Joshua returned, but also voiced his confusion in just one word

"Clive?"

"I just...needed you in my arms Joshua, before we're separated again for a long time"

"Why would we...oh, safety, we can't meet regularly and in fact it might be best not to see each other again until we originally reunited in truth, five years after I arrived to late to prevent Cid's death"

"Exactly, the fact that we're able to be together now is wonderful, but also very risky, even with our individual disguises in place"

"Then...I shall simply have to figure out a way to defeat Ultima sooner so that we can reunite sooner"

"Indeed, and don't forget to think about visiting uncle"

"I won't...it would be nice to see him again after so long"

"I'll be meeting with him tomorrow myself for reasons related to my Wyvern identity so I'll tell him that you may contact him in the future, explaining that you're unsure about it at the moment"

"Okay, and thanks for that consideration of letting him know the possibility that I won't be seeing him"

"Then...until the day we are truly reunited I wish you well Joshua, though I hope that maybe we can see each other again on the day that Cid died in the original timeline, I know you blame yourself for arriving too late to save him, but he never blamed you even after I told him the full story. He actually said that if he had survived long enough for you to begin the healing process that he would have told you to focus on the threat of Ultima instead of healing his wounds still risking death"

"I see"

The two hug one last time and then go their separate ways with a promise to send letters and stolas's to predesignated locations to keep in contact with one another and make what plans they could against Ultima including meeting up in about eight years time if at all possible. Once the group separated though Dion and Clive stayed behind to talk with Martha about a few things and then Clive headed back to the Hideaway while Dion in his guise of Cid headed towards potential trouble that Martha had mentioned while they had been talking about her Bearers and those that secretly lived in town. When Clive made it back though Gav spoke up concerned

"Where's Dion?"

"Martha told us of potential trouble that he decided to oversee personally, he'll call for help if needed and there's also some Cursebreakers in the same area last we knew so he already has a little bit of backup if needed"

"Okay, at least that's the reason why he isn't here and not more...serious reasons"

"Gav?"

Gav sighs before speaking up again

"There's been rumors that I've kept from the two of you that have popped up recently regarding Sanbreque, they've heard that there's a new Cid and while they know that Cid the Dominant is dead they aren't happy that someone else has taken up Cid's name, and they are wondering if a new Dominant will be chosen soon and that Dominant possibly being the new Cid. Even though there's no way that a new Dominant of Ramuh would be chosen in only two years after the death of the previous one, it's just never been heard of before"

"I see, and thus your concern that both of us aren't back even though that was originally to be the case"

"Exactly, I know, I know the two of you can take care of yourselves but..."

"It's still too soon after Cid's death, especially with the news from Sanbreque"

"Exactly, and then there's the fact that technically speaking Dion is still their Prince and should know what's happening in his home whenever possible"

"He should be back within a week's time from what we understood of the potential trouble, and again if he needs help he'll ask for it"

"Okay"

A week later as predicted Dion did indeed return to the Hideaway and after telling Clive what had happened had been told about Sanbreque and the rumors that had popped up recently regarding him

"I see...I might have acted too hastily when I asked to be killed and might have to reveal myself"

"Without Bahamut?"

"I have other means of proving myself, and I would only reveal myself to those I explicitly trust, those who never cared that I was Prince Dion or, more importantly, Dominant of Bahamut"

"I see...will it risk anyone if you make discreet contact to see if they're willing to at listen to you? I do mean without revealing your identity by the way"

"No, there is a symbol I use with these people that they are trained to recognize and thus will know that the message is truly from me and that this needs to be kept quiet"

"Then let's do it, and Dion we still need to figure out at least the next eight years if not more, especially with Cid no longer among us, there are things we need to do to defeat Ultima that can really only happen with Cid's help because while I have Ramuh's powers he doesn't listen to me very well, that and the fact that quite frankly Cid's knowledge of Barnabas would really come in handy in the future"

"I know, and we will figure it out Clive, I promise, by the way I heard something about new bearers coming our way via Isolde?"

"Sir Wade had a fight recently with Imperials who were escorting bearers near the port and thus managed to free them and offer the choice to come here and they took him up on it"

"I see, are they being properly escorted?"

"Yes by Sir Wade and his men personally"

"I see, that's risky though isn't it?"

"True, but the safest plan since we can't spare any cursebreakers right now"

"You have a point there, when are they expected to arrive?"

"By this evening if all goes well"

"Then I guess we'd best get prepared for a sudden influx"

And so between Clive and Dion they manage to get the Hideaway prepared for the sudden influx of refugees but later that night between them they finally had to admit something that they'd been avoiding for the past year

"We're either going to have to move the Hideaway to a new location that can handle all of us or split it into two different groups with each of us leading one of the locations"

"How did Cid keep things as contained as he did in the original timeline?"

"I have no idea"

"In any case there's a lot of decisions we need to make soon"

"Yeah"

Ultimately they decide not to split the Hideaway into two different groups, or move locations but they also agreed that they should start looking at potential locations for either plan

"One of those locations will probably be where you moved the Hideaway after Titan's attack on it while you and Cid were away and Cid was ultimately killed by Ultima"

"I'm not so sure that's a good location, primarily because we struggled to survive, but you might be right in that it might be the only location to go if we split up, but it is not a good location for expansion purposes"

As it turned out it only took a month to discover the location for expansion when Clive and Dion were both needed on a mission

"I think...I think this is it, Gav will have to scout it further to confirm our suspicions but...this might be our location if we simply expand the Hideaway instead of splitting into two different groups with each of us a leader of a branch"

Gav would quickly confirm that it was a good expansion location if needed

"Thanks Gav, we'll probably have to make a decision at some point soon enough but for now it's good to know that we do indeed have a good location to go to if we run out of room but don't want to split the group up into two"

"There's something else you should know about this location besides it suitability"

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I think we can expand quite a bit more than you think we can here"

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I talked to some folk around here and there's an underground cave system in the area, it's why it was abandoned actually"

"Wait, that makes no sense"

"Tremors started and people worried about the stability of the place, but if we manage to reinforce the visible areas and manage to make a way to the cave system and keep that system stable as well..."

Clive and Dion look at each other and nod in agreement

"How fast can we get that done Gav?"

"At least a month, plus we have to buy the property first before we even can get to work on it"

"You said that it was abandoned"

"Aye, and yet owned still by the previous people who tried to live on it"

"Which means it's not as good an option as we thought before"

Gav shakes his head though

"It wasn't just stability issues that caused the owners to abandon the location, the remoteness was also a factor because supplies were hard to get in primarily because of the blight encroaching on the place"

"Which means what exactly? I mean...if we buy the property people are going to wonder why we want such land"

"No Wyvern, the people hate the Empire and then there's the folks we'd be buying the property from, they're influential enough that they'll keep the land secret"

"I see"

After a moment of conferring with each other Dion and Clive come to an agreement and Clive let's Gav know what they had decided

"Then we start negotiations and as soon as the deed is in our hands we get to work on reinforcing everything that needs reinforced so that if we expand we're ready to move here at a moment's notice"

And so Gav takes Clive and Dion to the owners of the property that they wanted and a price is quickly agreed upon but then a surprise happens, once the money was handed to the previous owners and the deed transferred to Clive they took out a piece of paper and burned it in the fireplace that was going

"Wait...what was that you just burned that looked a lot like the deed we have?"

"The original property list and copies of all the deeds, including to the property you now own, no one will know that you're now the owners and the Empire will never know that there was more property than is on the list"

"How is it the Empire hasn't come to check on this town the entire time they've been in control?"

"They've tried but because of the blight and how small we are they think the town not as important and thus haven't visited or even looked through all of our records"

"Lucky for us then since they won't discover the altered records which could get you into some real trouble if they find out"

"We know and are willing to risk it"

Clive turns to Dion and speaks up

"Tell Gav that it's a go"

"Right"

And so Gav gets a crew to the site to prep it for potential expansion and as it turned out the job was completed just in time because even though Clive had yet to even meet Benedikta and thus encure Hugo's wrath the original Hideaway was still discovered and destroyed, however there were more survivors this time around thanks to Byron and Sir Wade visiting at the time with some supplies

"That was unexpected, however it's a good thing we were already prepared as much as possible before last night happened"

"Yeah, Dion we need to make a few decisions regarding what we're going to do next, especially since the Hideaway is going to need both of us staying here for a bit, if only for stability reasons"

As it turned out the Hideaway would need both of them to stay as much as possible for two years until things were stable once more

"So...six more years until the time you originally reunited with Jill at the Nysa Defile and met Cid"

"Yes, I have so much to be grateful for this time around, including not being Branded and yet...I have to wonder if the time travel is the cause of Cid's early death"

"That's probably true since if I hadn't remembered I would have never thought of the plan that got him killed ultimately, and yet I don't think he regretted being able to change the things he did change"

"Yeah"

"Still...what are we going to do now? I mean...we're secure in our location but..."

"I know Kupka, however we don't know why he's doing this since I have yet to meet Benedikta, however if he's anything like I remember he loves his traps"

"There might be a way to figure him out Wyvern?"

"Oh?"

"Remember those contacts I mentioned?, some of them are permanently stationed in Dhalmekia and can safely get close to Hugo and figure out why he's after us at the moment since as far as I and you both know Benedikta is alive still"

"Okay do it, and once we have that figured out we'll see about trying to find out where Benedikta is and keep her alive this time if at all possible, and then once we get to when Cid and I originally met we're going to have to discuss doing certain things that we did in six years time before I found out Joshua was alive"

"Oh that's right, I remember being told once that you thought Joshua dead for thirteen years, only finding out the truth right after Cid's death and falling unconscious before a true reunion could happen"

"Exactly"

"In any case I shall send out those inquiries in the hopes of figuring out why Kupka is after us years before he should be according to you and what I remember you telling me when giving me the history shortly after I became Cid"

As it turned out though Kupka was wanting to fight Cid in retaliation for a loss that he'd suffered at the hands of Cid not long before the Hideaway was created, and he didn't believe Sanbreque when they said that they'd seen his dead body due to Clive using Ramuh and Dion using Cid's name

"So that's why Kupka has done what he's done, I think...I think we might be able to make Kupka and Benedikta allies this time around, we won't tell them the full truth but we will say that we knew Cid, with you explaining it via fighting him and then wanting to follow his path and for me I have a good story too, and that we had a plan to fake his death but that it went wrong and that Cid is truly gone"

"If you're sure"

"I'm sure, but they will not learn about the time travel aspect, at least not until we can trust them"

"Agreed"

And so Clive and Dion arrange a meeting with Kupka and explain what they could about what had happened to Cid and the fact that Cid truly was dead because of Sanbreque and that in turn had Kupka agreeing to join their cause and reinforcing the cave system of the new Hideaway and helping harbor some of the Branded that they manage to free. Three months later and Benedikta was offering her services as well seeing how she could make contact with the Undying regularly to help them figure out Tharmr better then what they currently had, plus keeping an eye on Sanbreque for them