The assembled party -- Rufus, Barret, Vincent, Red XIII, Cid, Cait Sith, Aerith, Sephiroth, Rudy, Jack, Cecilia, Jane, Elmina, Alucard, Spekkio, Lucca, and Kefka, with Guido and a slowly-recovering Jill present as well -- sat at a crowded meeting in Cloud's Costa Del Sol villa. Cloud himself was off at the beach with Tifa, conveniently ignoring the whole problem.
Rufus was pacing the floor. "All right, we know what Zenogias was up to, but there's still a lot of unanswered questions," he said. "Number one: how do they cram all that graham into Golden Grahams?"
That question received no reply, so Rufus continued. "Number two: Zenogias must know by now that Jenova's dead, so what he is up to? Number three: where did Zenogias go? We can't follow the Topaz Weapon anymore because he is the Topaz Weapon."
"Maybe he's getting more orders from the Metal Demons," Aerith suggested.
"But the Metal Demons have all been destroyed," Cecilia said. "Except for Zed, and he turned good. Oh, and Alhazad. But he helped us fight Yuffie; I don't think he's controlling Zenogias."
"I'll return to Castlevania and see what Umbrella's up to," Alucard voluntereed. "Perhaps I might be able to uncover something." He turned into a bat and flew off.
"This is boring," Kefka complained. "When do I get to kill somebody?"
"Wait a second," Lucca said. "These Mother and Jenova creatures... they both came from space, and they were both trying to wipe out life on the planet. That's sort of like Lavos. Do you think they're all related somehow? I'm thinking..."
"Oh no, here we go," Cait Sith said. "Stand back."
* * *
The assembled team of Lucca, Hanpan, Emma, and Red XIII gathered in Cloud's villa. "All right," Emma said to the rest of the party. "We're going to try to run an analysis of -"
"Please, spare us," Jack begged. "Just go do your thing and let us know if anything important happens, okay?"
"- using the cosine of the co-efficient of the -"
"You can get started now," Spekkio said loudly.
"- with a retiulcation of the integer value of the complex root -"
"I said you can get started," Spekkio repeated.
"- coupled with a linear regression -"
"SHUT UP!" Spekkio shouted.
"All right, all right," Emma said. She, Lucca, Hanpan, and Red tromped off to the basement of the villa to begin their research.
Vincent looked at Rufus. "Do you think they're gonna find anything?" he asked.
Rufus shrugged. "If it exists, one of them is guaranteed to know about it," he said.
* * *
Lucca examined the results of a series of tests Emma had run on a piece of Dreamstone. "You're right," she said. "The Dreamstone exhibits a number of properties in concurrence with the Elws' living metal. However, I believe that a greater number of tests are needed to confirm the hypothesis."
"Perhaps we should conduct a burn test," Red XIII suggested.
"A burn test?" Emma sounded surprised. "Well, sure, why not?" She turned on a Bunsen burner and carefully placed the piece of Dreamstone on top of it.
A deafening explosion erupted from the Bunsen burner. The Dreamstone ignited into a pillar of flame, blowing a hole through the ceiling and showering bits of masonry everywhere. "That was real smart," Hanpan muttered.
"Well, now we know what happens when we burn Dreamstone," Emma said. "Let's try the living metal."
"Are you insane?" Hanpan said. "It could do that again... or worse!"
* * *
Two Costa Del Sol policeman cruised down the sandy streets towards the source of the explosive sound that occured moments ago. Wedge, the driver, turned to Vicks. "Looks like that came from the ol' Shinra villa."
Wedge pulled up into the driveway of the villa. Suddenly, a second explosion tore through the ground, blowing the driveway into rubble. The car was catapulted into the air, spun around several times, and slammed into a tree, killing both its occupants.
Cait Sith looked up from where he sat in the sand making a sandcastle. "Oh my God, they killed Wedge and Vicks!" he exclaimed.
* * *
Barret knocked on the door of the villa basement. "Yo," he said.
"Yeah, come in," Lucca replied.
Barret opened the door and he and Cait Sith stepped inside. The basement was in complete disarray, both from the pair of explosions and from the quartet's dizzying array of experiments. Emma, Lucca, and Red were seated at a table, with Hanpan perched on the table's surface, discussing something about reticulated splines. Barret was getting a headache just listening to it. Cait Sith paid no attention to it and sipped away at the large paper can of Pepsi he was drinking, manufactured by Pepsi, a proud subsidiary of Umbrella Corp.
"Wha' was all that noise 'bout?" Barret asked.
"We were doing a burn test," Lucca explained. "It had some unexpected results."
"That's putting it mildly," Hanpan said.
"Are you actually getting anything done, or are you just blowing stuff up?" Cait Sith asked.
"We are progressing," Red XIII said vaguely. "We took a brief break to engage in a game of Scrabble."
"Scrabble?" Barret said. "I'm good at Scrabble. I'll play you."
"YOU?" Hanpan exclaimed. All four collapsed in helpless laughter.
"Stop laughin', foo's!" Barret said angrily.
"This should be good for a few laughs," Lucca said. "All right, we'll play you."
Emma retrieved the Scrabble game and set it up on the table. "I'll sit this one out," Hanpan said, as Scrabble was only a four-player game. He joined Cait Sith at the counter on the side of the room.
The four drew their tiles. Red XIII had the highest initial letter, so he went first. He examined his tiles, and quickly arrived at a play. "I will play 'nucleic'," he announced.
"Can't play that," Barret said. "Ain't no such word. We be playin' Ebonics Scrabba', didn't you know?"
"What?" Lucca said. "Ebonics Scrabble?"
"Yeah," Barret said. "Red los' his turn, so I go next. I play 'hood'."
"This is ridiculous!" Lucca said.
"Yo' turn," Barret said to Emma. "Go."
"Um, I play 'thing'," Emma said, start to put the tiles down.
"The word you be lookin' fo' is 'thang'," Barret said. "This's Ebonics Scrabba', 'member?"
Emma shook her head. "I don't believe this," she said.
"Hey, can we try this?" Hanpan said suddenly.
The four Scrabble players turned to stare at what Hanpan and Cait Sith had rigged up. They had placed Cait's empty 15-ounce soft drink cup in a bracket on the wall over one of the Bunsen burners, then unplugged the gas hose from the Bunsen burner and poked it through the bottom of the cup. Hanpan and Cait Sith, who was holding the tool that ignited the burner, were gazing at their "experiment" wistfully.
"What the hell are you doing?" Lucca shouted, jumping up out of her chair.
Cait Sith held up the spark-making device. "We're going to light the straw," he said. "With your permission, of course."
"Do you have any idea what would happen if you did that?" Lucca demanded.
"No," Cait Sith admitted. "That's what we're trying to find out."
"That's jes' askin' for it, foo'," Barret said. "No way, Jose."
"Awww, come on, please?" Hanpan wheedled.
"Put the sparker down, Cait," Red XIII said.
Cait Sith sighed regretfully and set the sparker down on the counter, but continued to stare at the set-up. "I'm going to have dreams about doing this, I just know it."
* * *
Lucca set her laptop down on the living room table and plugged it in. The whole party, along with Guido and Jill, had gathered for the presentation of Lucca, Emma, Hanpan, and Red's findings. "So what have you found?" Rufus inquired.
"Watch," Lucca said. She started the program she and Hanpan had created. "We've traced the routes of Jenova, Lavos, and Mother backwards from the point of impact, calculating in the direction of impact, velocity at impact -"
"All right, all right, get to the point," Jack said impatiently. "What did you find out?"
"I don't know yet," Lucca said. "We haven't run the program yet, but we're about to find out." The whole group crowded around Lucca's laptop, which was displaying a map of the galaxy. Filgaia, and the Chrono Trigger and FF7 worlds were highlighted. Lucca pressed the space bar. Lines appeared at each of the planets and radiated out of the space, following the three space monsters' paths backwards.
They pointed at absolutely nothing.
Mother's line didn't cross any of the others at all, and Lavos's and Jenova's were completely parallel.
"Um... was this supposed to show something?" Jane said.
"Shoot," Lucca said. "I thought for sure we were onto something."
"Maybe I can be of help," a voice said.
"Have you noticed that everytime some important character is introduced, they always walk up behind us and say something, and everybody turns to see who it is that just spoke?" Hanpan observed, but nobody paid him any attention. Everybody had turned to see who it was that just spoke.
It was Bill Nye. "Bill Nye the Science Guy!" Cait Sith exclaimed, then broke into song. "Bill.. Bill... Bill... Bill... Bill Nye the Science Guuuuy!"
"Science rules," Bill Nye said. He pushed through the group and looked at the computer. "Consider the following," Nye said. "Filgaia wasn't Mother's first stop, and neither was the FF7 world for Jenova. You've just calculated their route from their last stop."
"That's right!" Lucca said. "Okay, let me fix this." She closed the galaxy map and made a few changes to the program. "Let's give this another shot." The galaxy map came up again, and the routes were traced a second time.
They all intersected. Jenova, Mother, and Lavos's paths all originated from one spot out in deep space. "Yes!" Lucca exclaimed. "We were right!"
"But it's just out in the middle of nowhere," Vincent said.
"Yeah, but there's got to be something there," Lucca said. "Let's go check this out. It can't possibly be a coincidence."
"This has been another edition of Consider the Following," Bill Nye announced.
"Bill Nye the Science Guy," Cait Sith sang. "Bill... Bill... Bill... Bill..."
* * *
Emma stood on board the Sweet Candy as it sailed across the Inner Sea on the way back to Adlehyde. "Something seems wrong at Adlehyde," Bartholomew said.
"Wrong? How can you tell?"
"Because I am..."
"...a man..."
"...of the sea!"
"Oh," Emma said. "Whatever."
"There's something wrong with the water," Bartholomew insisted.
"Maybe that?" Emma pointed at an object in the distance. It was several open barrels of toxic waste, bobbing in the water. Within about a yard radius of the barrels, the water was a thick green slime.
"Who did that?" Bartholomew demanded. He speeded up the ship and raced towards Adlehyde... or at least what used to be Adlehyde.
The normally stone-gray city walls had been painted white, and painted on them was a huge Umbrella logo. The "Welcome to Adlehyde" sign had been torn down and replaced with one that read "Welcome to Umbrellahyde, a division of Umbrella Corp."
"Uh-oh," Emma said.
* * *
The Protowing made its through the unending blackness of space. On board the seemingly infinitely-big vehicle were Rufus, Sephiroth, Barret, Vincent, Red XIII, Cait Sith, Aerith, Sephiroth, Cid, Rudy, Jack, Cecilia, Jane, Elmina, Spekkio, Lucca, and Kefka. Emma had returned to Adlehyde to continue her research, Alucard was still at Castlevania, and Bill Nye had wandered off.
"Do you really think we're going to find anything?" Aerith wondered.
"Maybe we'll find a really huge intergalatic space potato of doom," Cait Sith suggested. "On the other hand, maybe not."
"Shut up, Cait," Rufus said.
"We're picking something up on the radar," Rudy said. "It appears to be a large planetoid body."
"Huh huh, you said 'planetoid'," Kefka chuckled.
Rudy stared at him. "So? What's wrong with that?"
Before Kefka could reply (if he even planned to), the control panel started to crackle and electricity shot out of it. The lights in the Protowing turned off, and the controls shut down. Rudy pounded on the buttons in an attempt to restore control, but none of the controls functioned. "@#%$*&%$*%&!" Cid exclaimed.
Trapped in darkness, the Protowing hurtled towards some unknown destination. It grew in the distance, starting with a dot and rapidly growing into a small, cloud-shrouded, green planet. The Protowing tore through the planet's atmosphere and plummeted towards the flat plains on the surface.
"Bail out!" Rufus said. He grabbed a parachute, threw it on, and dived out. The others did so as well.
Spekkio looked down. Below them was a vast grassy plain decorated only by a few hills and a small industrial city. "Looks like this place is populated," he said.
"At one time, at least," Cecilia said.
They landed a short distance away from the city, in the soft dirt of the plains. The Protowing spiraled out of sight and crashed somewhere on the opposite side of the city. Aerith looked around at the scenery. "This is a pretty nice place, actually," she said.
"We'd better go make sure nobody swipes the @$%*&% Protowing," Cid said. "It might still fly."
They circled around the city, not wishing to explore it at the moment, and continued into the plains beyond. A trail of smoke attracted their attention, and, sure enough, it was coming from the Protowing. The red plane was lying on its side on the top of one of the hills.
Rufus and the others hurried up to the hill to their damaged craft. A small fire was burning inside the cockpit, which Cecilia doused with the Magic Vase. Cid had already squatted down to investigate the underside of the Protowing. He spun the wheels experimentally. "Doesn't look too @#$&ed up," Cid said. "We can probably tune it up."
Barret and Cid rolled the vehicle upright, then the foul-mouthed pilot and Lucca got to work repairing it. They worked for several hours, while the rest of the party set off to explore the city.
The city was eerily silent. It would have appeared abandoned, except for the cars parked in driveways, litter on the sidewalks, and neatly-trimmed hedges. Either the city had just been vacated, or the people were not showing themselves. "Maybe they only come out at night," Elmina suggested.
"We could, like, break into one of the houses 'n stuff," Kefka suggested.
"Don't be stupid," Cecilia said. "You don't get the help of an alien people by smashing into their home."
The party continued their walking tour of the city, passing out of the residential area and arriving at what looked like a factory. A label in some alien language was inscribed over the purple buildings' double doors, except for one recognizable word: "Manchuria".
The name struck Rudy as familiar, but he couldn't place it until Spekkio spoke up. "Hey, wasn't Manchuria the place where Angled Fred was born?"
"That's ANGOL Fred," Jane corrected.
"I think Emiko did say something like that," Cecilia agreed.
No sooner had Cecilia said that than an image of Emiko appeared in front of them. "Ha!" he said. "Thought you could keep me out of this story, did you? Yeah, I know what you were planning. You tried to get rid of me because I didn't have any personality, so you could replace me with Elmina, who doesn't have any personality either."
"Hey," Elmina said, offended.
"Get to the point, old man," Rufus said.
"You're right, this is where Angol Fred was born," Emiko said. "Or at least, he was born in a place called Manchuria."
"The plot thickens," Vincent said. "Maybe we should investigate some more around here."
"No!" Emiko said sharply. "Hurry up and finish the story, you dullard! Go back to the Protowing and get on with it already."
"Uh... okay," Rufus said.
"You'd better," Emiko muttered darkly, then disappeared. Following the Elw's advice, they jogged back to the hill where the Protowing had crashed. Cid and Lucca were sitting on the head, waiting for them. "'Bout @#!% time you got back," Cid said. "Where the hell ya been?"
Vincent shrugged. "Looking around," he replied, as vague as ever.
Lucca hopped down from her seat on the plane. "We're missing a few gears and stuff," she explained. "We can't fly without 'em."
"We saw a factory back in the city," Red XIII said. "We might be able to find the parts there."
"All right, let's check it out," Cid said. He and Lucca followed the rest of the group back to the factory. Sephiroth sent a projection of himself inside to look around. The first room appeared devoid of life.
"It's safe," he reported. Rufus pulled open the door and they stepped through. They were standing in one corner of a large, high-ceilinged, stone-floored, factory room. Near them was a machine that seemed to have been recently in use, for a line of swords was stalled on a conveyor belt. "This sword looks exactly like the Masamune," Seph said, picking up one of the blades.
"Look, and that one is a copy of the Guardian Blade." Rudy pointed at another of the swords.
"And this one's the Mana Sword, and there's Excalibur, and Ragnarok, and the Dual Blade," Rufus observed. "What is this, the legendary sword factory?"
"This's one damn weird planet," Barret said. "Creepin' me out."
They moved through the plant. A second machine seemed to be producing magic pendants, and another Mirrors of Truth. As they approached the other side of the room, they heard... voices. Voices speaking in a language cmopletely unknown to them, but definitely voices.
Sephiroth put a finger to his lips. He sent another projection inside the room, then quickly withdrew it. "There's a bunch of big blue tomato things in there. They look like they're on lunch break."
"So this place is inhabited after all," Rudy said.
Spekkio scratched his head. "Big blue tomato things? Nus, maybe? They sort of look like tomatoes, and they do only come out in the rain. That would explain why the city looked deserted. Didn't know they ate anything though."
"Well, they have mouths," Lucca said. "Presumably they engage in some form of mastication."
"Huh huh, you said mastication," Kefka chuckled. "Huh huh cool."
"That's mastication, not -" Lucca started.
"Sssh!" Aerith silenced them both.
"One of my forms is a Nu," Spekkio whispered. "I'll take care of it from here. You guys wait outside."
"But -" Elmina began.
"Look, if any of those guys aren't in lunch break, we'll be in deep doodoo. I've got a perfect disguise. I'm safe. Leave it to me."
"He does have a point," Vincent conceded.
"All right," Rufus agreed. "We're counting on you, then."
"If you whiff, we'll kick your butt from here to Junon," Cait Sith threatened.
"Jenova World," Sephiroth said. "Or whatever Umbrella's turned it into now."
Spekkio waited until the party had left the factory, then slowly changed into the form of a Nu. After the transformation was complete, he picked a door at random, opened it a crack, and looked inside. It was an empty office. Spekkio closed it quietly and looked in the next door. It was the bathroom. There were too bathroms, labeled with -- to Spekkio -- completely indistinguishable Nu silhouettes.
The third try was the charm. That door led into another stone-floored room, this one packed with crates. "Ispo facto mipso fracta," Spekkio said.
A huge pile of Froot Loops appeared in the room. "Well, at least I won't have to follow my nose if I'm looking for some," Spekkio said. He waved his hand and the Froot Loops vanished. "Ipso facto fracta xeno."
All the crates popped open. "That's the one I wanted," Spekkio muttered. He went to each crate and peered inside until the found one containing some gears. The Nu-formed Master of War grabbed as many kinds as he could carry.
The door opened and a Nu -- a real one -- entered, back on the job. It stared at Spekkio, then said something in its language. "Ipso facto delta phospho," Spekkio muttered the incantation to allow him to understand the Nus' tongue.
"Who are you?" the Nu repeated its question.
"I just came to pick up some spare parts," Spekkio said, showing the gears to the Nu. "You guys were on lunch break, so I just came in here. I'm in a hurry."
"What sector are you from?" the Nu demanded.
"Gamma," Spekkio said, hoping this was an appropriate answer.
The Nu appeared satisfied by that answer, but still a little suspicious. "Oh? Who sent you?"
"The head honcho," Spekkio shrugged. "You know."
The Nu gasped and its eyes widened. "Heretic!" it cried. "Blasphemer!"
"Er... maybe somebody else?" Spekkio said as the Nu advanced on him.
* * *
"What's takin' Spekkio so long?" Jane demanded. The rest of the party was sitting on the steps of the factory, waiting for the Master of War to retrieve the gears.
"It's taking too long," Elmina concurred. "He may be in trouble. We'd better go check it out."
"All right," Rufus agreed. "Let's go. Cait, you take the rear."
Rufus opened the doors of the factory and found himself staring at two Nus. He quickly blasted one into pieces with his shotgun. Cecilia ran in and cast Darkness on the other Nu, killing it.
Rufus looked inside the building. The room appear vacant. "Let's take this slowly," he said. "There could be more."
They advanced cautiously into the factory, looking around for any signs of Nus. The ceiling suddenly caved in and Nu dropped down, chanting a spell. As soon as it landed, it released the Dark Matter spell. A spinning black triangle of dark matter tore through the party. Red XIII leapt at the Nu and clawed it to death.
Rufus advanced forward with a limp. "I'll take the lead," Vincent volunteered.
"You know, this would actually be kind of scary, if it wasn't for the fact that these guys look like big blue tomatoes," Hanpan commented.
The window shattered as two Nus leaped through. Vincent shot one in the leg with his Ultimus Gun. It retaliated by clobbering with a mop. Vincent smacked the Nu with his gun, then turned to face the other, but Kefka had already squished it with his morning star.
They paused to catch their breath. "Back when we were starting this fanfic, one of the things I really wanted to see in it was somebody pistol-whipping a Nu," Cait Sith quipped. "I'm glad I finally got the chance."
"Sssh, don't you hear something?" Lucca said. She cocked her head. Sounds of fighting were coming from one of the rooms on the opposite side of the factory. "Spekkio!" Lucca charged off across the room, tailed by the rest of the party.
A heating duct in the floor flew aside and a Nu leaped out. Lucca was about to shoot it, but Aerith nailed it with the uzi hidden in her staff.
Barret kicked down the door, even though it was already open, and charged into the room. Spekkio was trying to fight off some Nus with hanging onto his gears. "Frog Squash!" Spekkio said. A giant rainbow-colored frog leaped down onto two of the Nus, squashing them flat.
The rest of the party fought their way through the Nus to Spekkio. "What the @$*%& happened?" Cid asked.
"I said the head honcho sent me, and they got really PO'ed," Spekkio explained. "But I got the gears. Let's scram."
Before they had a chance, a huge band of Nus carrying pitchforks and torches burst into the room. "Uh-oh," Jane said. She backed away from the Nus and stumbled across an ARMs case. Jane threw the case open and grabbed the Debilitator ARM inside.
"Thunder fall!" Elmina shouted, tossing her sword into the air. Lightning swirled around it as it flew. The sword reached the peak of its arc, then dropped down towards the Nus. Lightning flared out from the sword at the mass of blue creatures, electrocuting several. Elmina caught the sword again as it flew back to her.
The onslaught of Nus pressed onward. The party backed against the wall. One of the Nus cast Hallation, sending out a ring of multi-colored energy and sapping the party's energy to near-death levels.
"Quick! Aerith! Healing!" Rufus said.
Before the Cetra had a chance, another Nu cast Luminaire. A huge dome of green light began to rise in the middle of the party. Rufus's life flashed before his eyes. Then everything went white.
Rufus found himself in darkness, save the Nus surrounding him. He cried out and pitched forward, spilling blood from his chest. The blood formed into the letters "YOU DIED".
| Next chapter: Death Wears a Richard Nixon Mask |