Filling In The Blanks
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy IX or any of its characters; just my OC's in this story :P
Chapter 81: You're the Only One
"You are so going to pay for all of the trouble you've caused me, Miss." He sneered, reaching out to grab her.
She backed up, only to have her back hit the counter of the bar.
"Shit," she repeated again under her breath, at a loss for any real coherent words.
Before he could quite grab the girl's chin, a kick flew from nowhere, sending the man spiraling backwards. The soldiers that surrounded Ruby spluttered, unsure where it had come from either, until Zidane slowly stood in front of the girl, his arms spread out protectively.
"You're just too beautiful now for your own good," he chuckled to the girl standing behind him.
It seemed her attacker was too drunk to even notice her hair color change, and he figured that's where the situation had gone all wrong. Damn this guy and wanting to march into every single bar in Treno that day.
"Thank you," she breathed out, exasperated, as the other knights leapt up, ready for a fight.
Cinna let out a battle cry, and bowled into all of them with the metal bar stool he'd picked up. With alcohol coursing through their bloodstream, it made it difficult to stand with such force pressed against them, and all of them tumbled over like dominos.
"Run!" Vivi shrieked from the doorway, and Cinna threw the stool at any remaining guards who looked like they were going to get up. Then the three darted towards the door, nobody but Kuja's men making any move to stop them.
The three men who'd been sitting at the counter who had just talked to Cinna and Zidane cheered as Tantalus took a sharp left out of the bar.
Traffic wasn't on their side, everyone moving slowly through the busy streets. Zidane and Cinna were frantically shoving into everyone as a loud, blaring whistle came from nowhere, signaling that the target had been spotted and was currently trying to run.
"They're drunk!" Cinna spluttered, trying to keep up, despite their slowed pace, "How in the world do they have their shit together enough for an alarm?!"
Zidane's eyebrows pressed down over his eyes in annoyance. He knew something about this mission from Baku wasn't going to go right.
"We won't be able to hide!" He yelled as he spotted more men filing out of the various shops around them. "We won't be able to run much longer either!"
"What about the inn?" Vivi asked as his little legs soared across the cobblestone pavement.
Ruby shook her head, "They'll be swarmin' the place lookin' for me, darlin'! There ain't no way we can go now other than out!"
"Out?!" Vivi gasped. "How will Baku and Marcus and Zenero and Blank know where we went?!"
"There! There's the girl, one of the dreamers and their ally, also from Tantalus!" The other guards agreed, and Zidane began picking up more scrambled conversation about how one dreamer had been spotted.
"Vivi!" He suddenly gasped, almost coming to a halt looking for the mage.
"What?" He gasped, worried as to why the blonde cut Cinna off mid sentence about the rest of Tantalus just having to trust their gut and leave to find them.
"They haven't spotted you!" He gestured around them as they pushed through foot traffic. "You're too short! Hardly anyone has seen you all day!"
"What does that have to do with anything?!" Cinna demanded, throwing a punch at a guard that suddenly popped up beside him. The man toppled back and created even more of a road block than before.
"You need to split from us, Vivi!" Zidane told him, thinking fast.
"Wh-what? I couldn't!"
"Yes you can!" He encouraged as his heart beat thudded uncomfortably in his throat. "They don't know you're here… You need to go back to the inn, clean it up, let the other guys know what happened –"
"Yer askin' him to stay here alone?!" Ruby asked, leading them down the streets blindly. She hadn't any idea if she was going towards an exit – she could only hope her instinct was telling her the right way to go.
"It's the only way!" Zidane shook his head, "It'll help keep us all connected. Baku and the others might never find us – we can't just wait outside the city, the guards are going to be swarming!"
"Go northeast," Vivi blurted, "Follow the line of the mountains… My Grandpa's dwelling! Hide in the hot springs below – there should just be a cave. I know you'll find it, it's the only one over there!" The tone in his voice – the brave tone they had never heard before from the mage – told them that he had already agreed that he had to stay in Treno to tell the others where Cinna, Ruby and Zidane had gone.
"Are you sure, Vivi?" Cinna asked skeptically as Ruby jerked them to the right, tearing across a long bridge. The water below reflected the hot sun, blinding them from nearly everything in front of them.
"Y-yeah… If that's what I have to do, then I'll do it to keep everyone together!"
"Once we get off of this bridge, take a right and go down the first alley you see!" Cinna told him, tapping into the mental map that he'd studied just this morning. "Once you come out on the main street on the other side, take a left and on the right side a couple blocks down, you'll see the sign for the Prairie Inn – that's us! Go in, clean up any traces that we were ever there, and don't answer the door for anyone!"
Vivi's stomach twisted uncomfortably as he stared at Zidane, the genome's sapphire eyes shooting him worried glances every couple of moments.
"You'll be alright, Vivi…" He smiled encouragingly. "Go into a hat shot – remember what I taught you about stealing? Buy yourself a new hat to disguise yourself and don't stay in the open for too long… We'll see you in the caves, okay?!"
"O-okay…" He cried out, a sudden burst of panic filling him as he hit the wall of people again on the other side of the bridge, trying to shove through their legs. He was split now from his group, and his heart beat loudly in his chest. "Follow Zidane's instructions…" He mumbled to himself, determination thick in his tone. "And everything will be okay…"
He could hear the shouts and the yells of soldiers passing him on all sides, and tears stung his eyes. He was so scared. How had he agreed so readily to this plan just moments ago? He stumbled and fell to his knees, scraping his leather gloves against the rough stone underneath him, but the mage picked himself back up and kept going, trying to see through all of the people for the first alley that went all the way through the large shops on either side of him.
He would be okay… Just like Zidane said…
"Do you think Freya made it okay?" Dagger asked Steiner. The ex-knight had been leading them through his strict map knowledge, hoping that Bermecia was not so hidden in the mountains that they wouldn't be able to see it.
They felt like they'd left ages ago, though it had only been a couple of hours. They hadn't met up with Freya, so they were crossing their fingers that they would find her when they stumbled upon the city.
"I think she'll be fine…" He nodded slowly, though he wondered where she would go to wait for them if Bermecia was taken over.
"Cleyra couldn't give us any information about Bermecia?" Amarant asked from behind them. They stopped and turned to see that he was carrying a sleeping Eiko on his back. He must have grown fond of the girl on their trek to and from the marsh.
"They were very strange about it," Beatrix noted, pulling her hair over her shoulder, flicking her brown eyes between Steiner and Amarant. "They wouldn't give us very much information about anything, except their beloved Visionary."
Dagger squirmed uncomfortably, wondering if she should say anything or if that would give her away.
"If we must conceal ourselves," Steiner started, unnoticing of her nervous glances, "then we will…"
"Speak for yourselves," Amarant shrugged, "I've been on enough wanted posters in my life for it to not even matter."
Steiner almost rolled his eyes. This guy got on his nerves more than Zidane did when he first joined the resistance with all of his stubbornness. "Suit yourself, but if one of us dies because of your pigheadedness, that'll be on your shoulders."
"Fine," he shrugged, indifferent.
Steiner could feel the heat rise to his ears in anger. Dagger tugged on his arm to get him to calm down. He sucked in a sharp breath and, for her sake, turned towards the front again. His eyes scanned the haze around them, the hair on the back of his neck standing. It reminded him too much of Ipsen's castle out there today. Some pretty powerful magic was at work, and he figured that news of the Grotto's victory because of the resistance had probably reached Kuja.
When the raven finally let go of his arm, she wandered forward ahead of them, curiosity pushing her through the fog. "Be careful," he warned, though he didn't make a move to pull her back.
They walked for several long minutes, feeling like they were suspended in time – not moving forward or backwards. The white thickened around them, and a deep fear sent chills down Steiner's spine. He tried to tread lighter – staring enviously, for the first time, at Beatrix, whose armor didn't clank when she walked.
Smack!
"Oh!" Dagger tumbled back in surprise, but the ex-knight was quick to catch her before she fell.
She rubbed her head and stared guardedly ahead of her, the whole group coming to a stop.
"Did you just run into something?" Eiko asked from Amarant's shoulders, feeling horrified as she awoke.
The porcelain skinned girl had had her left hand out in front of her slightly, simply because it was so difficult to see through the fog, despite it being the middle of the day. She'd walked right into something, without even realizing it, before she fell back, dazed from the hit on her head.
Beatrix unsheathed her sword simply out of reflex, while Steiner's hand had been on his, strapped across his back, after he'd righted the girl.
She narrowed her eyes, not making any movement towards it again. Suddenly, her hands glowed a bright purple, and she swiped them through the air, glinting orange sparks following the movements of her gloves like a sparkler.
The white fog disappeared slowly. She ground her teeth together – she could feel the magic press against her own power, trying to make her dispel spell useless. But, the haze disappeared enough for them to see the withered wall that she had just run into.
"Are we…" Dagger mumbled, her eyes trailing up the crumbling wall until it was lost again in the white mist. She blinked her brown orbs, furrowing her eyebrows in wonder. "Are we at the mountains already?"
"This isn't a mountain…" Beatrix said, shaking her head. Her own armored glove touched the wall, trailing against it with a rough grating noise. "This is Bermecia's Wall."
The others took a few steps back, as though trying to see the whole thing out in front of them, despite being three feet from it.
"This is Bermecia?" Eiko gasped, scrambling to stand on Amarant's shoulders and lean forward. He grunted and grabbed her thighs so she didn't fall off. Stupid girl.
Dagger forced her hand against the wall again and started moving to her right. "We've got to find the entrance!" She broke into a run before Beatrix spun around her and blocked her way.
"We don't know if good or bad has control over the city… We must proceed with caution," She demanded with a slow nod. She ran a hand worriedly through her hair. What if they didn't catch it fast enough though? What if they were caught before they even got into the city?
"Help to have Freya," Quina said; the others jumped, having forgotten he'd been with them this whole time. He'd been uncharacteristically quiet on their journey, seeming to realize just how serious this was.
"That would be rather handy right now," Dagger agreed, pushing her hair from her face. It brushed over her shoulder blades as she glanced this way and that, trying to figure out the best course of action.
"There's nothing we're going to figure out from standing at this wall," Amarant decided, shifting Eiko so she was sitting on his shoulders once again. "We might as well go… If you guys don't want to move all the way in, fine, but I'm not going to sit and waste time when nothing can be accomplished here…" He grunted, as though proving his point, before meandering forward, passing the spot where Beatrix still stood in Dagger's way.
As his form dissipated into the fog, Steiner's exasperated face turned towards the rest of his comrades.
"Did he just –"
"I believe he did," Beatrix nodded, dropping her arms in defeat.
"Amarant right," Quina nodded, "Quina do nothing here." He wondered on ahead; Steiner's jaw slackened, if possible, more than before.
Dagger gave a wry smile to the two remaining knights. "It seems you've been outvoted…" She moved around Beatrix, though more cautiously before, a light dispel still hovering obliquely on her glove to aid her vision, if only just a little.
Beatrix gave a sort of proud smile to Steiner. He almost snapped her at, demanding to know just how she was okay with this, but she turned before he could.
"And to think we always thought Dagger would have problems persuading people to follow her lead…" She let out a light laugh and followed the path of the petite girl, not bothering to wait for Steiner at all.
"Unbelievable…" He muttered, before grudgingly following.
Eventually, Dagger caught up to the three ahead of her and insisted they wait for Beatrix and eventually Steiner to catch up again, agreeing that this was the best course of action, and begging Amarant to be patient and stay with them for just a little longer. If they were going to survive this stage of the mission, then they needed to work as a team.
Amarant really couldn't argue with that. These people had given him cause to follow what he believed again, and no matter how angry and bitter he acted towards them, he owed them for giving him back his freedom. Working in that damn prison for Kuja for so long made him lose sight of what he wanted – to find his sister, to stop all of this useless fighting – to start a life he never really had the chance to begin in the first place… If absolutely nothing else, he would always have these two top groups of people to thank for helping him to see his true path once again.
He rolled his eyes.
Was he going soft?
He waited for Beatrix and Steiner regardless.
The wall seemed endless, and each and every member, save for perhaps Eiko and Quina – for lack of understanding – wondered if they'd fallen off of their mark in the dense mist, and were further away than they'd originally planned. But the endless spray of fog was simply playing mind games, for they hadn't traveled nearly as long as they thought.
They heard the activity of Bermecia before they actually saw it.
"Hustle up with that cart, Rat! We don't have all day until the damn gate closes!" Someone was barking orders not far away, and that froze everyone, even Amarant, in their tracks.
"This wheel's just been broken!"
"Steady now, there's a nice chocobo!"
"Is there nothing that can help us now?!"
The disarray sounded odd. They recognized a thick accent – belonging to Freya's people. They knew because she and Fratley carried a lighter version of the same formal speech, but it was mixed with howling commands of soldiers – Kuja's soldiers.
They would soon find out that this city was under the control of Kuja in a different way than they'd encountered before.
Lady Hilda had done a great feat keeping soldiers out of her city. Her negotiation skills meant that she could still, in a roundabout way, run her city the way she wished; Kuja's influence would be minimal so long as she kept her people in line. Bermecia did not have the same luxury. The Bermecian city was more of the "norm" when it came to how things were run; soldiers bossed citizens around, and made them do all of the dirty work, but technically, citizens still had free reign of their lives so long as they didn't rebel.
But Kuja's influence was heavy – they weren't allowed to leave without papers, a destination, and a solid reason for leaving. They weren't allowed to leave in large groups – if a family of four wished to travel beyond the boundaries of Bermecia's walls, one member of the family had to stay behind because four was simply too many to leave at one time, and keeping a family member behind would ensure their return.
Citizens were forced to house soldiers, and any who did have Kuja's men living with them basically signed over the rights to their own households to these men – they had to cook and clean for them, provide the necessary things they needed to live, and anything else the troops really wanted them to do.
Businesses could be shut down at any time and any Bermecian – young or old, male or female – could be blamed for treason or uprising against Lord Kuja, and could be killed. It happened more often than anyone in the city would like to admit.
As the small group waited, harshly batting around ideas on how to get into the gate, some stroke of both good and bad luck descended upon them. To the east in Alexandria, something must have divided Kuja's attentions, for the spell of mist that leaked profusely into the air from some unknown place suddenly lifted, and the air began to clear like smoke on the breeze.
They would be able to see now exactly where the entrance into Bermecia was, and who exactly they were dealing with… But the only problem was – everyone could see them too. With nothing but a wall to their left and flat plains to the right, they had no cover against the ruthless guards that would be, no doubt, smarter than some that they'd encountered before simply because they were working the gate (and you just had to have some sort of intelligence to do that).
"What do we do?!" Steiner gasped uncharacteristically. When he was out of ideas, it was as though no one else could conjure something up – when the knight was not in his right mind to find a solution, they were all doomed.
As the smoke cleared and the regular citizens spotted them, their hearts beat into their throats, anchoring them to the ground with fear of exposure. But the Bermecians were not foolish – they said nothing. Each citizen only took a quick glance before going back to what they were doing… It wasn't as though the group in front of them was unfamiliar – their faces and appearances were plastered all over the walls – not to mention the Elites, who were making all of the public appearances from said rebellion, were becoming famous.
"Look!" Eiko suddenly gasped, and every pair of eyes in their momentarily-dysfunctional group stared wide eyed at a perch just inside the gates. There Freya sat, her eyes trained in on the guards in front of her, hands together in a strange symbol, sitting cross legged on the plank of wood.
Beatrix recognized it almost instantly – almost every woman knew some form of her magic technique.
The Bermecian was concentrating hard, putting two of her natural magic abilities to work. Distract and Chemist were both very difficult techniques by themselves, but put together proved to be almost impossible. Freya, however, had mastered it some time ago, and used her acute sense of smell and sharp eye to help her friends into the city. She didn't arrive the night before simply to mope. She'd found a large array of herbs inside the city – grown only in the murky atmosphere of Bermecia, and ground them into a powdery dust that could be carried on the breeze. By activating both of her abilities, it was a potion-turned-fume to the guards, distracting them and using the herb's natural reactions to each other to make the guards' senses unaware of the things around them. Distract was – well – distracting them from realizing that a chemist technique was being used on them at all.
It was a difficult thing to explain, so Beatrix allowed the others to wallow in the Bermecian's skill for a few moments before ushering them forward without a word. The citizens weren't affected – their own sharp eyes and sense of smell allowing them to counter the Bermecian magic, but nothing could stop them from plastering grins all over their faces.
Steiner was the last to scuttle through the gate and run up the path, hoping not to be detected by other guards. It seemed that though these troops were a bit more intelligent than others they crossed paths with, they were either poorly educated in the skills of observation, or were dense idiots. Nobody questioned the group of familiar looking people because they'd gotten passed the front gate. How could their best soldiers miss a resistance member? Their papers must have proved that they were, indeed, no resistance members. Or so every soldier inside the city thought…
But they still needed to be careful.
Unfortunately, even someone as stubborn as Amarant, was completely out of his comfort zone. They'd be relying on Freya's wits and direction in the city far more than they had originally planned…
Vivi tried to act calm as he walked down the hallway to their now-abandoned room in the inn. He felt like everyone was staring at him suspiciously, and he wondered if the conductor's hat was just a bit too ridiculous for him. People had to know he was a black mage… but not quite the same as the others – didn't that bother anyone?
He shook these jittery thoughts away as he burst into the room, hastily slamming the door shut again so he could hop around in anxiety. What in the world had he agreed to?
Oh yeah…
Cleaning the two rooms they'd been occupying for at least the last week. He shuffled, trying to calm his beating heart. There was no way he was going to get away with this – someone would come looking for him… someone had to have seen him.
He stayed like that for a long time, unsure how much noise he should make, or even if he should necessarily move. Nothing but silence hovered around him, and slowly his limbs began to loosen from their tense state, and he was able to breathe without feeling as though his heart was going to burst from his chest.
Pushing off of the door, he began his duty. The mage decided to pack what little possessions everyone had, and he went between both rooms, gathering everything that was needed. Maps, extra clothes, some of Ruby's hair ties, a concealable dagger that someone forgot that morning, and many other things that Vivi tried stuffing into the few bags left in the room. It seemed that Blank had the most stuff – he would probably be back the soonest.
While the quiet had initially calmed him down, when minutes turned into an hour, he was starting to feel anxious again. Why had no one else come? What was he supposed to do while he waited? Or worse… What if someone came looking for the group when Vivi was the only one there?
His stomach churned uncomfortably as he continued to clean the kitchen area. Cinna was an amazing baker, but he was the worst at cleaning dishes. The black mage busied himself with trying to get them perfect before slipping them into the bag in the middle of the floor. Hopefully he could keep his mind away from dark thoughts, at least until someone came to his aid.
The wind howled through the unnaturally empty streets. He pulled the hood of his cloak further over his already concealed eyes, aware of the weight of his dagger sitting icily on his leg. He moved quickly, knowing that anyone who saw him now would instantly peg him as suspicious.
A breach in the system… Any citizen who was out in Treno this night would be punished because they'd let enemies slip through their grasp. A dreamer and two wanted Tantalus members had fled from the city, and no one had the audacity to stop them, when in reality, nobody wanted to.
Blank hadn't returned to the inn. Night fell around the club much faster than he thought, and the 'end of the night' that Aster had been speaking of came much quicker than either had anticipated. With a fury that rumbled the very earth, Kuja's order was very clear to the town of Treno. There was no business tonight; everyone was to stay off of the streets if they wanted to survive.
Though Treno was powerful with all of its illusionists and tricksters, no one wanted to upset the situation further, and respected this command in fear of Kuja himself entering the city. Many people were in a resistance of some sort in the city, and yet, too many were still citizens to want to risk a massacre.
So he rushed along the streets, hoping to meet no opposition to enter the club just so he could get off the walkway. Nothing scared Blank, and yet… the feeling of being alone on the very streets he watched his best friend be abducted from was more than just a little unnerving.
The lights outside still blinked – something that Blank assumed Aster was doing simply for him, and he moved towards them dutifully. The redhead had a very clear idea of how much he was risking going back after such a strict order from Kuja, with potentially half of his team missing, but thoughts of finding out about a past even Ruby didn't know about was simply too enticing.
He curled his icy hands into a fist and knocked confidently on the large wooden door, even though he felt like he could quake with nervousness any second now. Luckily, the people on the inside didn't give him enough time, and he was swept through the door before he even really knew what was going on.
The lighting was even grimier than earlier, and he found himself, by no surprise, clutching the hilt of his dagger, ready to make a move just in case he had to.
"Ya look better without that ridiculous costume on!" Aster stepped into the dim lighting twirling his own dagger in his hand, staring at the redhead. Blank didn't say anything for a moment, eying the weapon suspiciously. "We was suspicious of ye!" He let out a bellowing laugh, "This was precaution for us… If ya not here for a fight, we're not going to hurt ya!"
"We?" He narrowed his eyes, standing straight once more as his hidden eyes flickered around the room. His hood had been brushed off of his head, and he suddenly felt exposed when he realized he hadn't sensed any other presence in the room before then.
And then a woman stepped into the poor lighting, and Blank had to do a double take. Her hair was long and dirty blonde, peppered with grey hairs here and there. Her skin was pale and the skin around her eyes was crinkled from old age, but she still had a figure, and the fighting spark in her almond colored eyes reminded himtoo much of Ruby.
"Aster and myself, Darlin'…" Her voice was older and strong – aged through many struggles and experiences. It sounded like a combination of smoking too much and laughing too long in her many years of life, but the way that familiar nickname for Blank rolled off of her tongue, there was no denying it. "I'm Cierradona, child… What news of our dear Ruby do ya bring?"
Blank's jaw uncharacteristically dropped, and he blinked his eyes a little too fast, just to make sure he was seeing things correctly…
Aster wasn't lying when he told the redhead he'd be getting more answers than he bargained for…
A/N: I hope you enjoyed that chapter, and are excited to see what we learn about Ruby's past via Blank! Haha, look forward to it! Thanks for reading!
-zesty-
