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Chapter ThirtySix The closest Kit had ever been to the Highwind before was watching it take off from Shinra's airport above Junon. Certainly she'd never been on the bridge before, and she looked around with interest. A team of engineers and co-pilots, still dressed in Shinra's uniforms, were walking around checking the many control panels and monitors, preparing to lift off. Vincent was standing off by himself on a lower level, his back turned. Then her eyes fell on one thing she'd not expected to see.
"Heyyyy! Kit!" The gigantic moogle turned and began to bounce toward her as the cat waved. "You're alive! Where have you been?"
Kit turned to Vincent, as he looked up at Cait's words. "Maybe you can tell me - what's he still doing here?"
Vincent gave a vague shrug. "I wondered if you would return," he said. "Cait Sith? He wants to help,"
"Has everyone gone crazy?" Kit asked pointedly. "He's a spy."
"He saved Tifa's life," Barret retorted, following her onto the bridge. "He's the one that took out Scarlet, he stood guard while I tried to open the door."
"And he helped me out when we arranged to steal the Highwind back from Shinra," Cid added as he entered. "It's my #$*^ ship, and he helped me get it back. I owe the cat here a big one."
Barret went to the front of the bridge, watching the sun set over Cosmo Canyon, as Cid began to talk to his crew. Red went to talk to Vincent, and that left Kit standing alone with Cait. The cat looked at her dejectedly, and she sighed. "Okay, whatever. I'm sorry. And... thanks for saving Tifa and helping the others," she added. Not that she could trust him even now - she knew enough about Shinra to have an instinctive distrust.
The cat simply nodded. "S'okay, I wouldn't trust me either," he told her cheerfully. "Not after what I did back at the Gold Saucer. I had no choice, though."
Well, that wasn't something that would exactly inspire trust in his character. Kit shrugged. "Yeah, I suppose," she said, heading for the door back to the main interior of the airship.
There was a sudden rush of gravity, then a feeling of weightlessness as the airship rose into the air. Kit paused where she was on the metal catwalk, hearing a moan of agony. "Yuffie?"
"Yeah... Hey, Kit," a weak voice said.
Kit found her at the far end of the catwalk, hunched over and green-faced already. "Hey... Airsickness too?"
"Worse than seasickness, actually. Ugh... Listen..." She grinned halfheartedly up at Kit. "It's good to have you back, really. I'd ask what happened and stuff, cause I really was wonderin' and all, but I'm not feeling so hot right now, y'know?"
Kit nodded sympathetically, remembering her own earlier illness. "I know. Believe me, I know."
"Kay... well... I'll be okay." Yuffie shrugged. "We'll talk later then, o...okay? When we're not... urk...."
"Yeah, sounds like a plan," Kit said, leaving Yuffie to her bucket.
Kit wandered the interior of the airship for awhile longer, amazed at the size of it all. Even a chocobo stable... She smiled grimly, thinking how mad Shinra must be that they'd let this slip through their fingers.
After awhile, she found herself on the deck, wind blowing through her hair as she watched the world speed by beneath her. For such a large vessel, the Highwind could certainly move. The red rocks of Cosmo Canyon were long gone already, and they were heading east over a series of small islands. To the south, only open sea was visible, and to the north, a thick forest in the center of a larger island.
Kit peered at it, wondering why it looked familiar. She should have remembered something like that, with a gaping square hole in the center of it. And when had she ever seen any islands from the air anyway?
Then she remembered, getting a shiver down her spine as she remembered a voice whispering in her ear, trying to suppress her will. Of course... that was where the Temple of the Ancients had stood once, until Cait Sith had sacrificed his first body to get the Black Materia.
Kit sighed. "Why can't he just be a spy?" she muttered. "It would all be simpler."
Footsteps echoed on the metal staircase up to the deck, and Kit turned around to see Red poking his head out cautiously. The wind whipped his mane around wildly, and he shook his head, trying to get it out of his face. "Will you be coming with us to visit Tifa and Cloud?" he asked.
Kit hadn't told them any details about when she'd last encountered Tifa. "No... that's okay. I'm sure she's taking good care of him, and they'll both be back soon."
"I hope so. I miss them," said Red. "At least you're back. But it just doesn't feel the same without Tifa and Cloud and..." His voice trailed off, and he lowered his head, slinking back below deck.
So, they were heading to Mideel. It shouldn't be much longer until they arrived, then, if they were already by the Temple. It certainly hadn't taken Kit long to get there under her own power. And indeed, in only a matter of minutes, the airship was slowing down to land at the edge of a forest. A few rickety wooden structures rose into the air, bringing back memories of the time Kit had spent there. Maybe she should go down after all, she thought. She still had no way to repay Dr. Richards, but she could at least say hello, tell him she'd found her friends and was doing fine.
But that would mean facing Tifa again. It was unlikely Kit could ever look her in the eyes again without feeling guilty, and so she stayed on the deck and watched as Cid, Barret, and Red strode off into the woods towards the town.
It wasn't long before Kit heard footsteps on the stairs again, this time lighter and quicker. "Fresh air!" Yuffie exclaimed. "Oh yeah - that's better."
"How are you doing?" Kit called to her from across the deck.
Yuffie waved and grinned. "Loads better, now that we're stopped."
Kit grinned back, though Yuffie still looked a little pale. "So I guess you want to know what happened?"
"No kidding!" Yuffie laughed, running over to her and perching on the railing. "Where did you go? You just ran off into the woods like some kinda psycho and disappeared..."
"Well, I guess after what happened to Cloud, Jenova's powerful influence is no secret," Kit began.
"Yeah, really," Yuffie agreed. "She got you too, huh? Whoa-"
Yuffie threw her arms up, trying to catch her balance so she wouldn't fall backwards off the railing, as the Highwind suddenly shuddered beneath them. Kit grabbed one of her arms and pulled her back. "Gawd!" Yuffie gasped, clutching the rail with both hands. "What's that pilot guy trying to do down there, taking off without Cid?"
Kit started to answer, then something in the distance behind Yuffie caught her eye. Something huge and dark was coming at them fast. "What's that? It's not Shinra..."
The two of them watched as the black dot near the horizon grew larger, until they could make out wings and a long tail. "What in the world...?" Kit murmured. "Is that...?"
Yuffie's eyes widened and she jumped down. "Aw, man! It's WEAPON! Why's that thing coming here?"
"WEAPON?" Kit stared at the approaching creature as another tremor shook the deck, this one strong enough to knock Yuffie off her feet. "How are we supposed to fight that?"
"Aggggh!" Yuffie yelled in frustration. "What is that loser doing down there?!"
Kit dragged Yuffie to her feet. "We better go find out," she said, making her way across the shuddering deck to the stairwell.
Inside, alarms were going off and red lights were flashing. Other than the ship's crew, only Vincent and Cait were left on the bridge. Vincent was aloof as always, watching WEAPON's approach as if it were merely a sparrow, but Cait's moogle was bouncing around as the cat wrung its hands anxiously. "What should we do?" he asked Kit and Yuffie frantically. "We're in serious trouble..."
"What do you care?" Kit commented. "Your real body's back at Shinra HQ."
The cat glared at her. "Could you lay off the cheap shots right now? That thing nearly demolished Junon!"
"Wrong," Vincent said calmly. "It's a different WEAPON. And it's not headed for us. It's headed over there..." He gestured out towards Mideel, where a multicolored geyser was gushing skyward at the south end of town.
The rest of them stared in bewilderment. "That's Lifestream!" Yuffie exclaimed.
"Cloud washed up here because the Lifestream's current is powerful, and sometimes breaks through to the surface," said Vincent. "It looks as though it's gotten even more powerful."
Cait nodded. "WEAPON slept in the north crater, where the Mako energy gathers," he explained. "Of course it would come here, where the Lifestream is going berserk."
"Who cares why it's here?" Yuffie asked. "It's here, and it's hovering around Mideel like some kinda vulture - just look at it!"
The creature had arrived at its destination, and was circling above the town as other small geysers burst from the earth around the town. "Cid and Barret and Red are in big trouble," Yuffie commented. "They better get outta there fast!"
"Er, that might not be so easy," Cait replied nervously, nodding at the window.
As they watched, WEAPON stopped in its path, hovering for a moment, then swooped down on the town.
"What's it doing?" Kit asked, puzzled. "It's not attacking, or those wooden buildings wouldn't be standing."
A few moments later, WEAPON rose above the town again, circled twice, then flew away. Immediately, the shaking stopped. The alarms on the Highwind were still going off, and one of the crewmen waved to the two standing by a large console. "Turn those things off!" he yelled over the din. They obliged, and the silence was so sudden that it seemed nearly unnatural.
"I wonder what that was all about," Cait said, mystified.
"Heh..." Yuffie grinned. "Glad that's over with."
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, another tremor shook the Highwind even harder than before, setting off all the alarms and knocking half the crew off their feet. "Not again!" Yuffie complained.
The view through the window was incredibly disturbing - the land around Mideel was rising and falling with the pressure of the Lifestream that raged beneath it, and even cracking open in places. "I sure hope Tifa and Cloud and Cid and the others aren't still in there," Cait said. "The land is collapsing right under the town."
"Can we reach them on the PHS?" Kit asked, and Cait shook his head.
"Unlikely, with this amount of Mako splashing around - it's all interference."
"Great, just great." Kit glanced towards the door. "And I guess even if they are still there, we couldn't do anything to get them out..."
Vincent shook his head. "There's no way of knowing if they're even still alive," he pointed out. "Rushing in likely would mean our deaths."
"But... but...!" Yuffie stammered. "We can't just let them die! No way!"
"Yuffie, there's nothing we can do!" Cait exclaimed. "Not now! We just have to trust they're smart enough to know when to take off. Which would have been a couple minutes ago, when this whole thing... oh, my."
Cait's voice trailed off as his glass eyes took in the scene outside. The tallest building of Mideel rose, then suddenly slanted sideways and slid out of sight behind the trees, without so much as a cloud of dust and smoke. The four of them watched as another building slid away, and another, and then a row of trees.
"The whole town!" Kit gasped. "Even..."
As the earth fell silent again, Dr. Richards and his nurse came instantly to mind, and she wanted to cry. Now she'd never pay them back for their kindness... And all the older people who had lived there, only wanting to live out the ends of their lives in peace, all gone.
"We have to go look," Yuffie said frantically, tugging on the others' arms. "Come on, come on! It's safe now, right? Right? We gotta make sure they made it out, okay?"
They all nodded, Cait more slowly than Kit and Vincent. His stuffed ears drooped, making him look utterly miserable. "Let's hope it's safe," he replied bounding towards the door. "But I'll keep looking until we find them, even if it's not."
Kit wouldn't have thought such a thing possible, but the "spy" actually looked as if he cared after all.
To Chapter ThirtySeven. To the intro. That means it's mine, not yours! |
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