Having dropped off the other two teams at their respective destinations, Rudy's team landed in a small forested valley on the planet Rufus had sent them to. The valley was home to a fairly large town. Rudy parked the Protowing in a garden in the center of the town, and they got off.
"What do you think we ought to do?" Cecilia asked. "Should we just ask around and see if anybody's heard of this Nakajima Robotics?"
"What else is there to do?" Rudy replied. They walked down the dirt streets of the town, eventually reaching a hilltop dojo. "This looks like a good place to ask," he said.
The party stepped inside the dojo and found themselves coming face-to-face with an onion wearing a blue karate gi. "Welcome to the Fruites Dojo," Chop-Chop said. "I trust that you are here to redeem yourself and acquire the gift for Mind Magic."
"Um, no," Rudy said. "We were wondering if you've heard of Nakajima Robotics."
Chop-Chop apparently didn't hear them. "I shall give you the gift... but first, let's see if you can try this rap!"
"I said, we don't want the gift," Rudy said.
"Kick, punch, it's all in the mind; if you wanna -"
"Never mind," Rudy said, and slammed the door shut.
As they were walking back down the hill, they bumped into another group coming up the hill. It consisted of a green-haired woman in purple clothing, a blue-haired guy in red-and-white striped clothes that resembled pajamas, and what appeared to be the missing link between dog and human.
"Excuse me," Cecilia said. "We're looking for a place called Nakajima Robotics. Have you heard of it?"
"You picked the right person to ask," the woman smiled. "My father founded that company. It was bought out, though."
"Where is it?" Rudy asked,
"In Shrike, on Dullard Street."
"Uh... where's Shrike?"
"You've never... just where are you from?" the woman said.
"It's kinda a long story," Cecilia said. "Basically, we're from another planet."
"Oh," the woman said, taking the news well. "Well, I'm Asellus Nakajima, and this is Lute." She nodded to the blue-haired guy.
"Hey," Lute said. He started to play the instrument from which he got his name. "Lute, Lute, he's kinda cute," he sang. "And he gave Mondo the boot."
"Who's the dog?" Jane asked.
"I'm not a dog," the dog-like creature said. "I'm Riki."
"Riki's home region is dying out," Asellus explained. "We're helping his people look for a new home."
"You're from another planet, can we come live there?" Riki asked earnestly.
"Uh..." Cecilia hesitated. Then the Tear started to glow, something it had not down for a while. The tortoise-like figure of Stoldark appeared in the air.
"You are welcome to Filgaia," Stoldark said to Riki. "We have a whole strip of useless desert that nobody cares about it free for you to use. Wait, that didn't come out right. Um... we have a nice, highly-respected, desert that you may have if you want."
"Okay," Riki said. "Sounds fun. When do we go there?"
"We have something to attend to on this planet first," Rudy said. "We have to stop the Umbrella Corporation."
"Umbrella?" Asellus repeated. "They're the ones who bought out my father's company. This sounds interesting. May I come along?"
"Sure," Jack said. "The more, the merrier."
"My quest is really, really, short," Lute sang. "You get so few items that you don't need to sort."
"That's the worst song I've ever heard in my entire life," Hanpan said bluntly.
"Now, Hanpan..." Jack reprimanded.
* * *
Rufus's party sat waiting impatiently in the palace of the floating city of Shebat for an audience with the Queen. Eventually, the doors opened and a familiar bearded man stepped out. It was Professor Daravon. "Ah, are it you the here," Daravon said.
"Hey, it's Professor Daravon," Vincent said. "What are you doing here?"
"For through the portal, be I aiding Queen because with luck."
"Huh?" Vincent said.
"I think he's trying to say that he was sucked through Mustadio's portal machine and ended up here, so he's working as an aide to the Queen," Red XIII said.
"We'll take your word on it," Rufus said. He had no idea how Red managed to decipher that from what Daravon said, but he never doubted the lion's intellect.
"Ability is a skill you learn with job training," Daravon said sagely. "For now, will see you the Queen."
"The Queen will see us now," Red XIII explained.
They entered the throne room of Shebat and knelt. "What is is that you wished to ask me about?" Queen Zefar asked.
"Your Highness, we need to acquire a recording of an angel's voice," Rufus said. "Where might we find one?"
Suddenly, a wounded Shebat soldier ran into the throne room and collapsed on the floor, turning the red carpet redder. "Solaris.... spaceship..." the soldier gasped. "Huge... can't stop..."
Daravon looked down at the soldier. "This man are sick," he observed clinically.
"What? A huge spaceship?" Zefar said. "What does it look like?"
There was no answer. The soldier was either unconscious, dead, or extremely rude. "This must be Umbrella's doing," Zefar said.
"Those damn Umbrella!" Barret shouted. "They be everywhere!"
"Your Highness, we're on a quest to overthrow Umbrella," Rufus said. "May we handle this?"
"What are you talking about?" Zefar said. "Who are you people anyway? Are you Solaris spies?"
"Damn," Cait Sith muttered jokingly, "there goes our cover."
Zefar did not interpret it as a joke. "Get them!" she shouted. Shebat soldiers rushed to grab the party. They ran out of the room, almost knocking over Professor Daravon as they did, and fled from the palace.
* * *
Rudy, Jack, Cecilia, Jane, Elmina, Asellus, Lute, and Riki had gotten off their plane and stood in the Shrike airport. The airport was a small, single-roomed, building with some nice plants but not much in the way of luxuries.
A guy in the airport spotted the party and approached them. He had a blue jacket and blue pants, and had spikey blue hair. "Spikey blue hair," Hanpan whispered. "Must be a hero."
"Hi, Asellus," the guy said. "What's up?"
"We're investigating Umbrella -- you know, the company that bought Nakajima," Asellus said. "How about you?"
"I'm looking for a guy named R3X," the guy said. "He's supposed to be the successor to BlackX. Know anything about him?"
"No, I can't say that I do," Asellus said.
"Hey, wasn't R3X that guy we fought in Umbrella HQ?" Hanpan said. "The one with the rings?"
"Now that you mention it, I think you're right," Elmina said.
"Rings?" Riki said. "Rings are bad."
"I thought you got rid of all those rings," Lute said to Riki.
"I did," Riki said.
"Maybe somebody picked them up," Asellus said. "I smell a rat."
"Hey," Hanpan said. "Watch it. I am a rat."
"Er... sorry."
Asellus remembered she had forgotten to introduce her friend. "This is Red," she explained. "A friend of mine."
"Your name is Red?" Hanpan exploded. "And you have blue hair and blue clothes?"
"Shut up," Red said indignantly.
"That's just plain weird," Jane said.
Lute scratched his head. "So, uh, where do we go now?" Like most bards, he was rather clueless.
"We need to get the rings before the bad people do," Riki said.
"Hey, didn't you give one of them to that scary doctor guy?" Lute said. "Noozlekern or somebody?"
"Nusakan," Riki said. "Yeah. He was from Koorong. Let's talk to him."
Jack shrugged. "Er... don't you mean Kowloon?"
"I think it used to be called Kowloon," Asellus said. "But then some guy called Daravon was elected mayor, and he changed it."
"Let's go, then," Red said. "The next flight to Koorong lives in 15 minutes."
The group, now including Red, first went to pick up their luggage from the last flight, which was on the far side of the airport, in a corner beyond the metal detector. Cecilia was picking up her bag when she heard a beeping sound from behind her. She turned. A shamefaced Rudy was standing in middle of the metal detector. "Uh-oh," Cecilia said, instantly realizing the problem.
"Excuse me, sir," a security guard said. "You'll have to go through again."
Rudy went through again, and of course the metal detector went off a second time. Crap, Rudy thought. How am I going to explain this?
A man sitting on a bench awaiting a flight stood up. "I'll handle this," he told the security guard. "I'm from the IRPO." The man flashed a card identifying as a Fuse, a member of the Inter-Region Police Office.
Rudy ran through his options in his head. "I'm not a real person, I'm actually made out of metal." "I'm not carrying any metal, it's inside me." "I'm full of gas and not the car."
On the other side of the galaxy, Vincent was psychically alerted to Rudy's thoughts, and gave him a point.
Fuse approached Rudy. "Are you carrying any keys or other metal belongings?"
Rudy stalled while trying to think of an appropriate response. "Other than myself, no." "Yeah, I swallowed some keys on accident." Just punch the guy out.
"I said, are you carrying any keys or other metal belongings?"
"Let go of me!" Jane's voice interrupted Rudy's thoughts.
Fuse turned. Two guys in trenchcoats that had previously been sitting on a bench as if awaiting a flight were now holding Jane's arms behind her back in a painful position. "Trinity," Fuse said to Rudy. "Stay here, okay?"
Fuse ran towards the two Trinity guys. "Stand back, everyone," he said. Red ignored him and gave one of the Trinity guys a punch in the face, forcing him to let go of one of Jane's arms. "You again, Red?" Fuse said, recognizing him. "Look, kid, let me handle this, okay?"
"Just hand over the chrysm-materia reactor, and we'll let you go," the other Trinity guy said to Jane.
"Here," Jane pulled the clicker she had obtained from Balio and Sunder out of her purse and handed it to the Trinity guy. As he took it, Jane's other arm snapped out and put the guy in a headlock. "Ha!" Jane said.
The first Trinity guy gave Jane a push. Concentrating on restraining her hostage, she stumbled and dropped the clicker. The Trinity guy dived and grabbed it off the floor.
"Get it, Hanpan!" Jack said. He ran towards the first Trinity guy, slashing with his sword, while Hanpan tried to snag the clicker out of his hand. The Trinity soldier was not fooled. He dodged to the side of Jack's attack and clamped his hands around both the clicker and Hanpan.
"Hey! I got his rat!" the Trinity guy exclaimed. "Let's get out of here!"
"MMPH MMMPH MRPGH MMMPH!" a muffled cry came out of the Trinity soldier's hands as Hanpan attempted to inform him that he was not a pet.
The other Trinity soldier broke free of Jane's grasp and took off with his friend. They ran out of the airport. Fuse chased after them, but the pair leaped into a waiting car and drove off. "You idiot," he said to Red. "I could have had them."
"Hanpan!" Jack said. "They took Hanpan!"
"Don't worry, we'll get him back," Fuse said. "They probably just want to use him as a hostage for whatever they want."
"The clicker," Jane said, explaining what Trinity wanted.
"And the rings," Red added. "R3X is working for Trinity."
"We were going to Koorong anyway to get one of the rings," Asellus said. "If we get it, maybe we can use it to bargain for the rat back."
"Good, sounds like we've got it worked out," Fuse said. "Let's go; the flight's leaving right now."
"Hold on, I gotta get my luggage." Rudy ran to pick up his suitcase, setting off the metal detector again.
"Don't worry, he's with me," Fuse said to the tired security officer.
* * *
Hanpan awoke in a cage in a dimly-lit room. Judging from the equipment scattered around the room, it appeared to be a laboratory. "Hello," said a voice. Hanpan whirled. Sitting in the corner of the cage, next to the water bottle, was another mouse. This one was a bright yellow color and a polka-dotted red bow in her hair. "Who are you? I'm Pipsy!"
"Hanpan," Hanpan introduced himself. "I'm a wind rat."
"I like the wind," Pipsy said. "It feels nice. Zort!"
"O---kaaay," Hanpan said, rather dubious of his cellmate. "Where are we?"
"I don't know," Pipsy admitted. "It's some place. Wizpig took me here. It's nice. They give you food and water. Sometimes they stick needles in you, though.
Great, Hanpan thought. I'm a lab rat. "Don't you wish you could leave?"
"I like it here," Pipsy said. "The lighting sets the mood effectively."
Hanpan rolled his eyes. "Well, Pipsy, I hate to break it to you, but they're using you for experiments."
"Is that bad?" Pispy asked, eyes wide.
"Yes," Hanpan said. "That's why we're going to leave. When do they usually do these experiments?"
"I don't know," Pipsy said. "Sometimes this robot comes and takes me to this other room."
"Aha!" Hanpan exclaimed. "Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pipsy?"
"I think so, Hanpan," Pipsy squeaked. "But me and P.J. Berri, what would the children look like?"
Hanpan slapped his forehead. "No, Pipsy," he said patiently. "We're going to reprogram the robot so it takes us out of here. Do you know what reprogramming means?"
"Uh... sending messages to a repo man?" Pipsy guessed.
The sheer stupidity of the reply caused Hanpan to wince. "It means changing what the robot's instructions are."
"Oh," Pipsy said.
"The next time the robot comes, we're going to make it take us out of the base, instead of to to the laboratory," Hanpan explained. "Then we'll be free."
"Sounds good to me," Pipsy said. "Narf!"
They're Pipsy and Hanpan
Yes, Pipsy and Hanpan
One is a genius
The other I can't stand
To save their mousey face
They'll escape Trinity Base
They're Pipsy, they're Pipsy
And Hanpan, pan, pan, pan, pan.... pan!
* * *
The "miscellaneous" characters -- Lucca, Spekkio, and Alucard -- trudged through the forest, bound for the huge tower they could see floating in the sky. They were accompanied by a youth named Edge who also expressed an interest in the Tower, and his dragon mount.
"So, Edge, why do you think these guys are after the Tower?" Lucca asked.
"I keep telling you, it's pronounced Edgy," Edge said. "Not Edge."
"Yeah, whatever."
"It's sort of like that Maxwell kid and Wrangle Fred," Spekkio commented.
"Angol," Lucca corrected.
"Now don't you start it."
"Anyway, uh, Edgy -"
"Thank you."
"- why do you think Umbrella is after the Tower?" Lucca asked.
Edge thought for a moment. "It has a lot of ancient technology in it," he said. "They're probably after that."
"Hmmm," Lucca said, not entirely convinced. Umbrella had plenty of technology already.
The small party stepped into a clearing in the forest, which, unknown to them, was being used as a camp by somebody else. "Zalasta!" Edge exclaimed. "But... aren't you dead?"
Zalasta leaped up from tending the fire. "Edge!"
"It's prounounced Edgy!" Edge said. There was a bright flash of light that signified the start of battle as Edge drew what appeared to be a boomerang-shaped piece of driftwood. He pointed it at Zalasta and stared firing bolts of energy from it.
Zalasta dodged away from the fire and climbed into a nearby fighter plane. "I'll deal with you later, Edge," he said as the plane took off.
"Why can't anybody pronounce that right?" Edge lamented.
"I guess that was a bad guy, huh?" Spekkio said.
"Yeah," Edge said. "Zalasta. He was one of Craymen's guys. I thought he was dead, but apparently not."
"Umbrella's reviving people," Alucard explained. "Lots of them."
"Who are the Craymen?" Lucca asked.
"No, Craymen is just one person," Edge said. "That his name. He's the leader of a band of rebels against the Empire."
"If he's one guy, then how come his name is plural?" Spekkio asked.
"Never mind," Edge said. "We'd better get to the Tower before Zalasta comes back." Edge hopped onto his dragon.
"Uh... I don't think we can all fit on that thing," Lucca said.
"Hold on," Spekkio said. He conjured up a drum and started shaking it. After a minute, he stopped and looked up into the sky. A white dragon with blue wings and an orange stomach flew down through the canopy.
"Bweeeeeooo!" Flammie said.
Spekkio and Lucca leaped astride Flammie and Alucard boarded Edge's dragon. The two dragons took off into the sky, headed for the Tower.
* * *
Rufus's party fled through the streets of Shebat with the guards chasing them. They ducked into an alley, only to find it dead-ended at a high fence. While Rufus looked around for a means of escape, Professor Daravon ran into the ally, accompanied by a black-haired man with glasses, a green guy with red hair, and a pink cat-like creature.
"Founding you!" Daravon exclaimed. "What is plan you?"
"He wants to know what our plans are," Red XIII translated.
"We're trying to stop Umbrella," Rufus said. "And we're also looking for an angel's voice to boot."
Daravon spoke briefly with the man with glasses and the green guy. The cat was excluded from the conversation, a fact which did not go unnoticed by Cait.
"Umbrella's taken over Solaris," the man with glasses said. "And the war's been worse ever since they did. So we'll help you out."
"This's the way!" Daravon said enthusiastically. He turned to his companions. "These is Citan, Rico, and Chu Chu." The pink cat squeaked a greeting to the party.
"Actually, my name's Shitan, not Citan," Shitan said.
"Hey, Rico," Cait said to the green guy. "Do you know a guy named Blanka?"
"No," Rico said. "Why?"
"Never mind."
"We'll take the Yggdrasil to Solaris," Shitan said. "Do you have Gears?"
"Rufus does, in his head," Cait Sith said. "But they don't work very well."
"Shut up, Cait."
"No, not those kind of Gears," Rico said. "The big robot kind."
Chu Chu squeaked.
"I think we can get some," Rufus said. "Hold on."
* * *
Rudy's party entered Dr. Nusakan's office in Koorong. It was a dark, gloomy, building and sparsely ornamented. The main decorations were a large grandfather clock and a chair in which another patient sat. "It's really a skeleton," Lute said of the patient.
Riki knocked on the door. "It's me, Riki," he said.
The door opened and Dr. Nusakan looked out. He was wearing a white lab coat, brown pants, and a pair of small glasses, and his black hair hung down in bangs. In fact, he looked very familiar. "It's Hojo!" Jack exclaimed.
"Huh?" Nusakan said.
"Uh... you look like somebody else," Jack said. "Never mind."
"Do you have the ring I gave you?" Riki said.
"Yeah," Nusakan said. "I kept it hidden, just like you said."
"Some bad people are trying to get the rings," Riki said.
"We need the rings to keep them away from Trinity," Asellus explained to Nusakan.
"Trinity, eh?" Dr. N. said. "Somehow doesn't that surprise me. Okay, I'll get the ring." Nusakan retrivied the ring from its hiding place inside a chia pet in his office and handed it to Riki.
"Well, we've got one of the rings now," Red said. "That will at least keep R3X from getting them all."
"I thought we were using going to use the ring to bargain for Hanpan back," Jack protested.
"We need to keep one of the rings to prevent Trinity from getting them all," Red said. "If you want to trade the ring, we'll have to get another one. Riki, what did you do with the others?"
Riki concentrated and tried to remember. "I put one in Wakatu," he said eventually.
"They probably haven't touched that one," Red said. "Let's beat 'em too it."
"We'll have to make a side trip to Scrap and find Gen," Asellus added.
"Are we going, then?" Rudy said. He didn't know anything about this world, so he left the decision-making to its native inhabitants.
"Yeah, I guess so," Asellus replied.
"See you, Hojo," Jack said as they left the office.
* * *
"Do you think they're coming back?" Rico asked about Rufus's party. "They could have just run off."
"It sounded like they really had a grudge against Umbrella," Shitan said. "I don't think so." Chu Chu squeaked her agreement.
"Likely right are Citan," Daravon said.
"It's Shitan, not Citan," Shitan corrected.
A large red robot approached the park where Daravon and the Xenogears guys were sitting. It was Shinra's Proud Clod. Rufus rolled down the window and stared out. "Sorry we took so long," he said. "The others will be here in a sec."
In the distance, a song was heard and grew louder. Goemon Impact turned a corner and marched into the park, with Cid, Barret, and Red XIII riding inside. "It was all we could find," Red XIII explained, embarassed.
"Hey, where's Cait?" Aerith said from the Proud Clod.
"I thought he be ridin' with you, foo'!" Barret said.
"Let's ditch him!" Rufus said eagerly. "Besides, we, uh, don't have time to wait for him."
Shitan and Rico fetched their own Gears, the Heimdal and Stier, respectively. Daravon boarded the Heimdal with Shitan. Chu Chu stood still for a moment, then suddenly started growing until the pink creature was the size of a Gear
"@#$($%*$%!" Cid swore upon seeing the transformation.
"Hurry, let's get going before Cait catches up," Rufus said. "Heh heh."
* * *
Rudy's party entered the pub in Scrap. As usual, it was filled with characters just waiting to be recruited and the same band, which apparently played, lived, ate, and slept in the bar. Lute walked to the table where Gen sat. "Hey, Gen, remember me?" Lute said.
Gen stared at Lute blankly until Jane used her Teleprompter ARM. "Oh, yeah, you were the one who offed Mondo," Gen said. "Lute."
Lute started to strum his lute. "Lute, Lute, he's kind of cute," he sang. "And he gave Mondo the boot."
"If you interrupted my drinkin', it better be important," Gen said. "What's up?"
"I need to go to Wakatu," Lute said.
"Never heard of it."
"Don't be stupid," Fuse said. "Mondo's base was in Wakatu, and you just said Lute offed Mondo."
Gen was silent. Jane turned on the teleprompter again. "All right, you got me," Gen read from the teleprompter. "Let's go to Wakatu."
"Hey, wait." A guy with a large white afro and white clothes jogged up. "Can I come too? I need to get the Saber Card in Wakatu. I'm Rouge, from the Magic Kingdom."
"What the hell?" Jack said. "You have white clothes and white hair; why are you called Rouge?"
"Let's call him 'Blanc,'" Jane suggested.
"Look, it's not my fault what I'm called," Rouge said.
Gen opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to forget what it was and scratched his head, trying to remember. Jane flipped the teleprompter again and Gen said, "Cut the talk. Let's get going. I want to show you this cool thing you can do at the Junk Shop."
* * *
Zenogias scraped some dirt off some of the pillars in the Tower, searching for the clue he needed. As he was doing so, the hangar door opened and Zastava's fighter plane flew in. "Master Zenogias!" he exclaimed. "It's the dragon-rider I told you about! He's coming to the Tower."
"Big whoop," Zenogias said. "Now don't bothoi me. I'm trying to... aha!" Zenogias stared at the words he had uncovered.
"THIS GENERIC ANCIENT RUIN IS A PRODUCT OF NU-DYNE INDUSTRIES. FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT OUR PLANET AT:" Underneath the words were the coordinates of the Nu planet.
"Bingo," Zenogias said. "Now I just got to wait for my othoi body to get here so I can destroy the evidence."
* * *
The sandship-turned-airship Yggdrasil flew over the flying city of Solaris, capital of the Holy Solaris Empire, a division of the Umbrella Corporation. The four Gears and Chu Chu dropped out and parachuted down into the city. "Where are we headed?" Vincent said from the Proud Clod.
"To the Ol' Factory," Shitan replied. "That's where they make their Gears."
"FIND OUT!" Daravon exclaimed. "Thinks Citan well."
"Please," Shitan said. "It's Shitan, not Citan."
The Gears and Chu Chu trooped through the city towards the Ol' Factory, lead by Shitan. "Hey!" a whiny voice shouted. "Rufus!" Rufus turned the Proud Clod. Standing on the roof a building, about level with the top of the Proud Clod, were Yuffie, Shake, Gorky, Chekhov, and Staniv.
"Oh no, it's Yuffie," Rufus said. "What are you doing here, you little twerp?"
"What do you think?" Yuffie said. "I want that Degeon Materia. C'mon, hand it over."
"Yuffie," Rufus said. "Look at us. We're riding in huge, powerful, battle robots. You're a bunch of mostly unarmed bratty ninjas."
"You can't stop us!" Shake exclaimed. "We're the Mighty Morphin' Wutai Rangers!"
"The what?"
Yuffie hurled her boomerang at the Proud Clod. It smashed a hole through the glass cockpit. "Feel our wrath!" Yuffie shouted.
"Don't be ridiculous," Rufus replied. He threw a lever and fired a Beam Cannon blast at the building. The building collapsed, throwing the five Mighty Morphin Wutai Rangers off.
"This isn't going to work," Staniv said. "WE NEED GODO-ZORD POWER!"
A huge robot version of Godo's three-faced Omni Change transformation started to rise out of the ground. The Wutai Rangers hopped in as it did. When it had fully emerged, the Gear was taller even than the massive Proud Clod.
The Godo-Zord unleashed its Trine attack. A spinning pyramid of electricity appeared over the good guys' Gears, throwing out bolts of electricity and jamming the Gears' systems.
Then a huge Moogle came tearing out of the foggy sky. It had huge missile launchers mounted on its shoulders, which it began firing at the Godo-Zord. The Godo-Zord shifted faces and cast a heal spell on itself. The Moogle countered with a green ray that turned the Godo-Zord into a giant robot frog. While the Wutai Rangers were trying to puzzle out what to do now, the Moogle pummeled it with a fresh barrage of missiles until the frogged Godo-Zord tipped over onto its back and started smoking.
The Wutai Rangers ejected from the damaged Gear. "Oh, gawd," Yuffie said. "What are we going to do now?"
"RUN!" Chekhov said as the giant Moogle Gear hulked towards them. The five Mighty Morphin Wutai Rangers scrambled off into the city.
"Hey, guys," Cait Sith peered out of the cockpit of his moogle.
"I can't believe we were saved by that stupid cat," Rufus muttered.
"Hee hee hee."
Chu Chu squeaked.
"Who were those people?" Rico asked.
"It's not worth explaining. C'mon, let's head to the Ol' Factory."
* * *
Hanpan sprung the lock on the cage with a bent paperclip and opened the door. He turned to Pipsy, who was nailing a picture of Conker to the wall of the cage and gazing at it with rapture. "Stop that," he said. "We've got work to do. I want you to find the owner's manual for the robot. I'm going to find a way to disarm the robot."
Pipsy stared at Hanpan. "What's wrong with its arms?" she asked eventually.
"Never mind," Hanpan said. "Just look for the manual."
"Okay," Pipsy said. "Poit!"
While Pipsy was rummaging through the drawers for the manual, Hanpan flew up to the shelves. "I think I found something, Hanpan," Pipsy reported.
"Great," Hanpan said. "Now I just... ah, here we go." Hanpan pocketed the magic wand he had just found, but then realized that verb wouldn't do, as he had no pockets, so he just took it instead.
They waited for the robot to arrive, and were rewarded ten minutes later when it rolled into the room. It was vaguely human-shaped, but was blockier and had a compartment in its chest, which was obviously used to carry its rodent passengers. Hanpan pointed the magic wand at the robot. "Martin Sheen, Ben Vereen, shrink to the size of a lima bean!" he shouted. There was a zapping sound and the robot was reduced to a tiny version of itself.
"Naaaarrrf," Pipsy breathed, astonished.
"The manual, Pispy," Hanpan commanded.
Pipsy handed Hanpan the manual, open to the proper page. Hanpan flew down the floor and started reprogramming the robot, consulting the open manual as he went. When he had finished, he flew back up to the cage and used the wand to return the robot to its normal size.
Hanpan turned to Pipsy, who was banging on a toy drum. "All right, Pipsy, back into the cage," he said. "Just pretend like everything's normal. And stop playing that drum."
"Sorry," Pipsy put the drum down and scurried back into the cage, where she went back to staring at the picture of Conker. Hanpan flew in after her and closed the door.
The robot reached down with one of its hands and opened the compartment in its chest, then picked up the cage and shook Hanpan and Pipsy out of the cage and into the squarish compartment. It put the cage back, but made no move to leave the room.
"Oops," Hanpan said. "Did I break it?"
Suddenly, soapy water started pouring into the compartment from above, blasting Hanpan in the face. He scurried away from the flow. "Does this always happen?" he asked.
"I don't think so," Pipsy said. "Perhaps it has a case of extreme schizophrenia."
The water continued to pour in, now up to Hanpan's stomach (which wasn't very high off the floor). Only then did Hanpan look at the cover of the manual. It read: "Programming your dishwasher".
"PIPSYYYYYYYYYY!" Hanpan yelled. He was about to throttle the mouse, but stopped when he realized it would do no good.
Hanpan struggled for breath as the soapy water filled the chamber. He tried to push the compartment door open, only to discover it was firmly locked in place. Then everything went black.
When Hanpan woke up, he was lying on the counter in the laboratory. The robot and Pipsy had disappeared, but a man in red clothing and a red cape, and wearing a cheesy-looking helmet, was standing next to the counter, looking over him.
Hanpan took a deep breath to recover his air supply. That was when he noticed that he had been dressed up in a similar outfit as the red-clothed man. "What have you done to me?" he shouted. "I don't even wear clothes, especially not ones like these!"
"It was the only way I could save you," Alkarl said. "Now go. Your friends need you."
* * *
Rufus's party, back on foot, descended into the basement of Umbrella's Ol' Factory. So far, their search had turned up nothing about the giant spaceship the Solaris scout had reported.
After dispatching some surprised Umbrella guards, the group entered a tall shaft-like room. A narrow bridge led across the room to some complicated-looking machinery. Not really expecting to find anything, the party crossed the bridge anyway. "Looks like a carbonite freezing machine," Shitan observed.
"Thinking corrects, Citan, me," Daravon said.
"STOP CALLING ME CITAN!" Shitan yelled. "It's Shitan! With an 'sh!'"
Aerith looked up at the carbonite freezing machine. "Somebody's frozen in there," she said. "We'd better unfreeze them." Aerith walked to the control panel and started pressing buttons.
"Wait a second," Vincent cautioned. "We don't know who it could be. It might be some Umbrella wor-"
The carbonite freezing machine started to hum. Steam poured out of it and a lot of parts started moving. "Jes' look what ya' did, foo'!" Barret said.
"But somebody's frozen," Aerith said. "We have to help them."
"Aerith's right," Red XIII said. "If Umbrella froze one or more individuals in here, there's a high probability that they are somebody Umbrella wished to dispose of."
"Well, if he says so..." Barret said. He never doubted Red XIII.
Suddenly, Reno came tumbled out of a chute. "Huh?" he said. "What happened?"
"Reno?" Rufus said, shocked.
"Hey, boss," Reno said. "Er... I guess you're not our boss anymore."
"Not at the moment," Rufus said. "Just wait."
Rude dropped out of the chute. He sat silently for a moment, then stood up. "Any booze around here?"
"Hey, Rude, have you tried Rogaine?" Cait Sith asked.
Rude ignored him, but he was clearly offended.
"How did you guys get frozen?" Rufus asked.
"Umbrella," Reno said. "They froze anybody who had tries to the old Shinra. Except Palmer. I think they made him the janitor."
The trio of Turks were completed Elena fell out of the chute, followed a moment later by Reeve. "Howdy, y'all," Reeve drawled.
"Rude, are you a skinhead?" Cait pressed.
"Shut up," Rude muttered.
"Do you guys have any idea what Umbrella is up to?" Vincent asked.
"How would we know?" Reno said. "We've been carbon-freezing for a couple months."
"Yeah, as soon as Umbrella took over, they rounded up all of the top Shinra people and re-assigned them to this planet," Elena explained. "But what they were really doing was was planning to carbon freeze us, and they did, because they didn't want the old Shinra people resenting Umbrella."
"We get the @$%!*in' point," Cid said.
"Hey, Rude, if you had kids with somebody from Gransteam Saga, then they would have no face and no hair," Cait Sith said. "And if they had kids with, uh, Bugenhagen, then you'd get kids with no face, no hair, and no legs."
"Rufus, make him stop that," Rude whined.
"I've tried," Rufus sighed. "There's no hope."
"With enough generations, you could wipe out every single body part!" Cait said excitedly. "And then you'd get people who were just a brain! Sort of like Andross in Star Fox. That would be sorta cool, in a way, to be just a brain."
"Shut up, Cait," Vincent said. "Please."
The door to the freezing chamber opened with a sliding sound. Rufus turned, expecting an Umbrella guard. It was not. It was Zenogias himself. The long-haired Umbrella head crossed the bridge, an amused smile on his face. "Enjoying yourself?" he asked plesantly.
"Hey -- I thought you took over the Topaz Weapon's body," Rufus said.
Zenogias ignored him and turned to Reeve. "I must congratulate you on your robot design," he said. "As you can see, it works voiy well."
"You're just a robot, then?" Vincent questioned.
"You guessed oi, Chestoi," Zenogias said. Cait Sith giggled at his accent.
Zenogias drew a gun from his jacket and fired at the wall. A stream of acid sprayed out, eating a hole through the hole in seconds. "Unless you'd like to become a subject for an anatomy class, I suggest you move," Zenogias said. "Line up ovoi by the chute." He gestured towards the carbonite freezing chute.
Zenogias's acid demonstration had served it purpose. The party nervously lined up by the carbonite freezing chute. Zenogias walked to the control panel and started pressing some buttons. "Look!!! Out!" Daravon cried.
Sephiroth silently materialized behind Zenogias. He held up a finger to the party for quiet. When Zenogias bent over the panel, Seph quickly lashed out with the Masamune, tearing off Zenogias's left arm. Sparks flew out of the exposed circuity of the robot. "'Ere, your arm's off!" Sephiroth shouted.
Zenogias jerked around as, somewhere else, the real Zenogias attempted to regain control of his robot. The robot hobbled off out of the room, leaving the party behind. "Should we chase him?" Shitan asked.
"Yeah!" Rufus said. He ran out of the room, leaving the rest of the group to tag along after him.
"How did you get here?" Aerith asked Sephiroth.
"What did it look like? I teleported," Seph said. "After I woke up, I psychically located you guys and warped in to help you. Looks like I came at just the right time."
Rufus trailed Zenogias as the robot made its way up through the Ol' Factory. Rufus stayed a distance back to avoid a confrontation. As he wasn't the real Zenogias, Rufus was more interested in seeing where he was going than in destroying him.
Zenogias ran all the way up to the top floor of the Ol' Factory and exited through a small airlock. Rufus and the rest of the party followed him into a clear tube leading from the Gear factory to a huge black spaceship that was at least three times the size of the factory. It looked like an ocean liner, only it was a dark black, had no apparent design, and had guns all over it. Zenogias turned as he heard Rufus enter the tube and drew his acid gun. Fortunately for him, the gun could be easily held in his one remaining hand. "Don't move or you'll be taking an acid bath," he said.
Chu Chu squeaked and started to grow. It quickly reached the ceiling of the tube, and continued to expand. Its pink furry body strained against the tube, then the tube shattered. The tube fell into two pieces where Chu Chu broke it. Rufus's side, firmly affixed to the factory wall, remained steady. Zenogias's side, however, was loosely joined with the spaceship and started to bend. Zenogias slid out of the tube and dropped the city streets several stories below. His robot body was broken into pieces by the impact.
Chu Chu squeaked, satisfied, and shrunk back to its usual size. "Good work, Chu Chu," Shitan said.
"This's the way!" Daravon exclaimed.
The party was trying to figure out how to cross the tube when Yuffie flew up into the gap between the two tube segments, accompanied by Gorky. Both had morphed into their other forms, Gorky a small dragon and Yuffie her "one winged Yuffie" angel form.
"I'm baaaack!" Yuffie called. "Are you, like, going to give the Materia now?"
"No," Rufus said. "What made you think that?"
"Hey, guys, she's turned into an angel," Cait said.
"So we noticed," Red XIII said.
"That's 'cuz we're the Mighty Morphin' Wutai Rangers!" Yuffie exclaimed, to the delight of Cait Sith, who was holding a tape recorder out. "Hey, what are you doing?"
Cait just smiled. "Turn that thing off!" Yuffie said. She knew they were playing a trick on her, but she didn't know what it is.
Shitan had no idea of Cait's intentions, so he drew his katana and moved in to fight. Gorky breathed a blast of flame, forcing Shitan to back off.
Daravon drew his Organics sword. "Million Dollers!" he shouted, swinging the sword. A red ray shot out and hit Yuffie, transforming into some sort of big cat. "You is cuar this now, ha," Daravon said.
"Don't you mean 'cougar'?"
Yuffie looked around, panicking. Gorky grabbed her in his claws and flew off. "You haven't seen the last of us!" he shouted. "The Wu-Tai Clan shall return!"
Daravon turned to Shitan. "Your shoulds is with Wiznaibus, Citan," he said.
"He's trying to say you should have used With Knives," Red XIII translated.
"Listen... to... me..." Shitan said to Daravon. "My... name... is... Shitan.... Shitan... not.... Citan.... SHI-tan... do... you... under...stand?"
"Off course!" Daravon answered.
The spaceship's engines roared to life, almost deafening the party. Unable to talk over the noise, Rufus pointed at the spaceship door and shrugged. Barret nodded, indicating he thought they should board the spaceship. Rufus looked at Shitan and was met with a blank stare.
"HEY!" Cait shouted through his megaphone. "YOU GUYS REPORT BACK TO SHEBAT. WE'RE GOING TO GET ON THE SPACESHIP."
"Citan" nodded his agreement, and he, Daravon, Rico, Chu Chu, the Turks, and Reeve trooped back into the factory.
"Hey," Cid said. "How the #*&$% are we getting across?" Nobody heard him over the engine noises, so he tried again. "HOW THE #$%*! ARE WE GETTIN' TO THE #^@$%! SPACESHIP, DAMMIT!?" he yelled.
Vincent changed into Chaos and flew under the far side of the tube and held it up. The rest of the party jumped across, then Vincent flew into the tube as well and reverted to his human form. The party entered the spaceship. Strangely, there didn't seem to be anybody inside. They ducked down behind some crates just in case and waited for the spaceship to take off.
* * *
"Any luck?" Cecilia asked Rudy. Rudy had fashioned a crude fishing pole with his sword and belt and was trying to fish up the ring that lay in the waters around Wakatu.
"Hey!" Rudy shouted. "I think I got something!"
"HEAVE!" yelled the phantasmal voice that had earlier told Rudy to "Ge'redda!"
Rudy started reeling in frantically. The line, however, snagged on a rock, and whatever he had hooked fell out. "Tha'zoo'bad!" the phantasmal voice said.
Rudy cast again when he heard a creaking sound. He ignored and remained intent on his fishing. "HEAVE!" the voice yelled when Rudy's line caught something again.
Rudy started reeling as fast as he could and winded up pulling the ring out of the water. "I got it!" he exclaimed.
"Baaaaarrrry gud," the annnouncer said. "RAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE!"
Rudy had the ring, but he was hooked. He cast again, hoping to get some actual fish this time.
Meanwhile, the creaking sound had been the gates of Wakatu opening, and Nomad, two of her flunkies, and Platyhooks the platypus had stepped out. "It's Nomad," Red said.
"Who's Nomad?" Cecilia asked.
"A crime boss," Red said. "She's the leader of the Scorpion Army."
"Hand over the ring," Nomad demanded.
"Hey, you," one of Nomad's flunkies interrupted. "Isn't Santa Claus real?"
"No," Jane said bluntly.
"YOU LIAR!" the flunky yelled. He and his friend ran at Jane, swinging their swords about wildly. Seeing no other alternative, Jane shot them with her Uzi ARM, killing them both.
"Oh my God, they killed Vicks and Wedge!" Nomad yelled. "You bastards!"
Platyhooks started firing his own shotgun at the party and a fight ensued. Rudy, however, ignored the battle and remained intent on fishing -- he was reeling in something big. With one final tug, he pulled an entire whale out of the water. "Hey guys," Rudy said. "Look, I caught a whale."
Jane looked away from the fight long enough to see Rudy's whale. "You caught a whale?" she repeated. "That's ridiculous!"
"I'm going to see if I can catch another one," Rudy said, casting again.
"You know, we could use some help here," Jane said. Platyhooks was calling in hordes of Platoonpuses to harass the party while he and Nomad were shooting at them.
Rudy looked down at the water, then at his whale, then at the fight, then back at the whale. He shrugged, put down his pole, picked up the whale, and heaved it at Nomad and Platyhooks. Nomad's eyes opened wide as the whale hurtled towards her. She tried to get out of the way, only to have the whale slam into her and knock her backwards against the gate.
While a dazed Nomad attempted to contact Trinity, Platyhooks fired a Total Shot at the party, spraying them with bullets. Angered, Rouge cast Overdrive on himself, then followed it with ShadowServant.
"Uh, boss, he's doing that one Stasis Rune trick," Platyhooks cautioned.
"D'oh," Nomad said as Rouge started casting Tower repeatedly. The pair were quickly obliterated by the trick.
Before she had been killed, however, Nomad had apparently managed to get through to Trinity. A Trinity battleship was hovering ahead, and BlackX fighters, clad in a variety of colored suits, were parachuting out onto the dock. "BlackX," one fighter, clad in puke green, said. "Taste the rainbow."
The wimpy BlackX fighters were easily overcome by the party's combined power, but more and more of them continued to rain down. Some of them started sawing off the stair supports before being killed. Slowly but surely, BlackX was collapsing the stairs, which were positioned over the rough waters of the lake.
"I hope somebody has some brilliant idea that they come up with at the last possible minute," Jane said.
"Look! Up in the sky!" Asellus exclaimed.
A blur of light sped overhead. "Here he is to save the daaaaayyyy, Mighty Mouse is on his waaaaayyy!" Mighty Mouse sang. He hovered in the air and started throwing blasts of energy at the BlackX ship.
"It's Mighty Mouse!" Rudy exclaimed. "We're saved!"
Mighty Mouse kept up his assault on the ship until it started to smoke. The ship plummeted towards the water, throwing BlackX fighters out of its windows. One of the fighters hit the ship's propeller and was knocked into the water.
As the ship was about to crashland, a black, caped, figure flew out. "Ha!" it exclaimed. "You can't defeat me that easily!"
"R3X!" Red said.
Mighty Mouse / Hanpan flew down to the gate of Wakatu. "You'll never get away with this, evildoer!" he shouted. I sound like an idiot, Hanpan thought to himself.
"You think some frickin' mouse can beat me?" R3X said. "Well, you're frickin' wrong!"
"Hey, that sounds like that one guy," Jack said. "The guy from Caer Xhan."
"I still think that sounds like the guy from the Jungle Book," Jane said.
"Palet," Hanpan said, supplying the game.
"Let's look," Jane grabbed the horns of R3X's helmet and yanked them off. Sure enough, it was Palet.
Elmina turned to Mighty Mouse. "How did you know that, Mighty Mouse?"
Crap, Hanpan thought. "Uh... I know all the evil masterminds of the world," he said.
"So Trinity's working for Umbrella, then," Asellus said.
"Of course," Palet replied. "We own 98% of everything in the universe. Now give me my frickin' helmet back!" Angered, Palet turned and blasted Jane with a bolt of lightning that knocked her to the ground. Rudy darted into attack with his sword. Palet seized Rudy's arm. "Ha!" he said. "My very touch can dissolve bone marrow."
Palet gripped Rudy's arm tighter. Rudy said humming, then singing. "Zippedy doo-dah, zippedy day, my oh my, what a wonderful day..."
Palet stared at Rudy in horror. "What's frickin' wrong?" he yelled. "Are you another frickin' superhero?"
Seeing that Palet was still clutching his arm in an attempt to dissolve his non-existant bone marrow, Rudy rolled backwards, flipping Palet over his shoulder and into the water, where Palet was eaten by a whale.
Rudy stood up and dusted himself up. "The ol' metal comes in useful sometimes," he said.
Rudy raised his sword in triumph. Jack imitated the gesture. Red pumped his fists enthusiastically. Lute did obscene things with his lute.
"I must be going now," Hanpan announced. "Farewell." He flew off into the sky just as the bird-shaped "region ship" Cygnus arrived. The Cygnus touched down on the water, and the doors opened. Hawk peered out, with a non-Mighty Mouse Hanpan perched on his shoulder.
"Hanpan!" Jack exclaimed. Hanpan flew over and landed on his usual perch on Jack's shoulder. "Welcome back, little guy."
"I managed to escape from Trinity," Hanpan said. "And Hawk here found me."
"How did you know to come?" Red asked Hawk.
"I guessed," Hawk said with the hint of a smile.
Another Trinity battleship appeared in the sky. "Uh-oh," Asellus said. "Here comes some more Trinity."
"We'd better hit the road," Hawk advised. "Baccarat's nearby; we can hide there."
* * *
Rudy and Jane wandered the giant casino of Baccarat aimlessly, trying to appear busy. BlackX had followed them to the casino, so they had to pose as normal casino customers until BlackX left. He wandered over to the bar, where they -- not too surprisingly -- found Gen. Acting as if they'd never seen him before, Rudy and Jane sat down and struck up a conversation.
"Those seats are for customers only," the bartender said.
"Okay, I'm a customer," Rudy said. "Give me some water."
The bartender turned to Jane. "What would you like?" he asked.
"I'd like to see a Celebrity Deathmatch between Terra and Asellus," Jane replied.
"No, I mean, what would you like to drink?"
"Er.... water."
Rudy and Jane chatted some more with Gen until Cait Sith wandered up to the bar. "Hey, you there," he said to Rudy. "Would you like your fortune told?"
"C-" Rudy started to say, and then remembered not to appear anonymous. "-an you really tell fortunes?" he finished.
"Oh yeah," Cait replied. "I'm really good. It's only a buck, too."
"Okay," Rudy tossed Cait a quarter. "What's my fortune?"
Cait pulled his 8-ball out of his cloak and shook it. "It says... You will go to Room #2210 and learn about Umbrella's plans," he said, ignoring what the 8-ball actually said. "Hey, what kind of a fortune is that? I'll give you another fortune... for another buck, of course."
"No thanks," Rudy said.
Cait Sith wandered off. Rudy and Jane finished their drinks, then casually left the bar and went to the elevator. Gen waited another ten minutes, and followed.
* * *
Most of the party had already assembled in Room #2210 when Rudy and Jane got there. "How did you guys get here?" Rudy asked Rufus.
"Wait 'til everybody gets here," Rufus said. More people continued to wander in as Cait told them their 'fortune'. Cait Sith himself appeared after a couple minutes.
"Okay, that's everybody," Cait Sith said. "And I made some decent money too. Hee hee hee."
"I'm sure you're wondering what's going on," Rufus addressed the Wild Arms and SaGa characters. "Well, we managed to find an angel's voice. And we also rescued Reeve and the Turks from carbonite freezing... that was an added bonus. Anyway, we ran into a robot body of Zenogias, and we chased him to this big black spaceship. We stowed away on it, and it took us here. We think it's just refueling."
"Uh... what the hell are you talking about?" Rouge asked.
Rufus stared at him. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Get out of here!"
"He's with us," Jane explained. "His name is Blanc."
"No, it's not," Rouge said. "It's Rouge."
Rufus waved his hands towards the door. "Shoo! Shoo!" Confused, Rouge and the other SaGa characters wandered off.
"When do we get to go to your planet?" Riki asked Cecilia.
"Later, Riki," Cecilia said. "We have something important to deal with first."
"Ok." Riki left the room just as Gen came running back in.
"Did you say a big black spaceship?" Gen said. "Really big? With no real shape, sorta rectangular?"
"Yeah, that's what it was like," Rufus said. "Why?"
"I've seen that thing," Gen said. "It's called the RB3. It's made to blow up entire regions. We stopped it once before, but it must have rebuilt itself."
"Yeah, or Umbrella rebuilt it," Vincent said.
"Those damn Umbrella," Barret muttered.
"I know how to disarm it," Gen said. "You'll have to trust me here. Where is it?"
"It's in this huge parking garage down the street a ways," Rufus said. "An Umbrella parking garage, of course."
The group ran to the elevator and took it down to the ground level. They left Baccarat and ran down the streets of Manhattan towards the parking garage. "Why are we going there?" Elmina asked. She pointed up at a big black blob in the sky. "It's already taken off."
"#$%^*$%," Cid said. "Now what do we do?"
The Protowing skidded to a landing on the street and Chop-Chop Master Onion hopped. "Thought you might be wanting this," he said. "Don't get cocky, it's gonna get rocky."
"Thanks, Chop-Chop," Cecilia said.
"I need to go," Chop-Chop said. "What I had this morning I don't even want to say to you." Chop-Chop hurried off down the street.
The group piled in the Protowing and flew into the skies after the RB3.
* * *
Edge, Lucca, Spekkio, and Alucard flew out of the forest and over the plain surrounding the Tower. "Edgy," Lucca said. "What is that thing?"
"Hey, you got it right," Edge said.
"I mean it, what is that thing?" Lucca asked.
Edge looked up. A huge black spaceship was hovering over the Tower. "I don't know, but it doesn't look good," he said. "Let's check it out."
* * *
The Protowing streaked through the atmosphere of the Panzer Dragoon world. "We're lucky this thing never runs out of fuel," Jane commented.
"Here's the plan," Gen said as they approached the RB3. "This thing has a fatal design flaw. There's a trench in the back that will take us directly to the core. If we blow up the core, the whole thing will go down."
Rudy flew around the RB3, searching for the trench, and located it. It was near the back, just underneath one of the main engines. "All right," Rudy said, "we're going in."
* * *
The real Zenogias stood in the command center of the RB3. "We're ready to fire," the captain of the RB3 said. "The Tower will be toast with one shot."
"Good," Zenogias said. "Commence primary ignition."
"Yes, sir," the captain said. He pressed a button to begin charging the RB3's weapons.
"Good luck," Zenogias said. "I'm off to become mastoi of the univoise." Zenogias flew out through the emergency exit.
A blip appeared on a radar. "What?" the captain exclaimed. "Somebody's trying to fly into the ship? Master Zenogias, wait!" Zenogias, however, had already departed. The captain was on his own. He punched a button on the control panel to speak to the hangar. "Scramble all ready craft."
* * *
The Protowing spun down the RB3 trench, bound for its core. "So far, so good," Jack said.
"Don't rest yet," Rudy muttered as he concentrated on flying the Protowing.
"Rudy!" Elmina shouted. "There's two ships coming in after us!"
Rudy risked a glance back. Two X-Wings had flown into the trench. The Protowing's radio came on and Wedge spoke. "It's me, Wedge," Wedge said. "We came to help. Trust us, we have experience with these kind of situations."
"Bogey at six o' clock!" Biggs / Vicks interrupted.
"No problem," Rudy said. "It's only 4:15."
"That's not what I meant!" Vicks yelled. Taking the situation into their own hands, he and Wedge turned their X-Wings and started firing on the heavily-armored Umbrella ship approaching. The Umbrella ship retaliated with a laser that blew both ships into smithereens.
Rudy gritted his teeth and concentrating on reaching the end of the trench. The Protowing had no weapons, so combat was not an option.
"Hey, nobody said it," Sephiroth said after a while.
"Oh my God, they killed Vicks and Wedge!" Cait obliged. "Those bastards!"
Zastava's ship started firing at the Protowing. Rudy kept flying, but the repeated blasts were knocking the Protowing around the trench and severly damaging its systems.
Two dragons flew into the tunnel, Alucard and Edge riding on one and Lucca and Spekkio on the other. This time, Lucca was ready. As the flash of light signifying the start of a battle went off, she snapped a picture of it with a Polaroid camera.
Edge's dragon opened its mouth and spewed laser fire at Zastava's ship. "Whoa, that was cool," Spekkio said. "Our dragon can't do that."
Aerith looked out the window. "It's Alucard and Spekkio!"
Zastava turned his plane around to do battle with the dragons. Edge's dragon fired its lasers, while Lucca shot at the plane with her gun. Zastava's ship was well-armored, however, and stayed in the air.
Spekkio guided Flammie forward until he was flying parallel to Zastava. "What are you doing?" Lucca asked. Spekkio just grinned, and held up his bank.
"Death has something to say to you!" he shouted to Zastava, and put a coin in. "Foolish mortals! Mwah ha ha haa!"
"Huh?" Zastava was momentarily distracted by the bank, a distraction that proved fatal. His hands slipped on the control stick, sending his ship sliding to the side and downwards. It smashed into the side of the trench and exploded.
"Hee hee, I knew this would come in handy sometime," Spekkio said.
The two dragons caught up with the Protowing as they approached the core. The chute leading into the core was on the top of the trench, and too narrow to fly through, so Rudy hit the eject seat button. It catapulted him through the roof, through the chute, and into the core. Jack scrambled into the driver's seat and pressed the button.
They landed in a short hallway leading to the command center. After taking a short breather from the intense flying, the combined groups entered the center.
Like the last time Gen had been here, the core was a circular platform with a huge array of monitors / mirrors posted at various heights on the back side. This time, however, the Genocide Heart had been replaced by an Umbrella-designed control panel, at which Inspector Gadget was sitting.
"Inspector Gadget!" Vincent exclaimed. "You've betrayed us!"
Inspector Gadget stared at Vincent until he recognized his former leader. "Vincent," he said. "You've changed."
"So have you," Vincent said.
"Yes," Inspector Gadget said. "I work for Umbrella now. And I'm afraid I'll have to destroy you. Go Go Gadget Atomic Bomb!" Inspector Gadget's hat opened up and a missile rack carrying a nuclear missile popped out.
"Vincent!" Rudy said. "Off the control panel, off the corner monitor, through the monitors, off the other corner monitor, off the control panel, through his head."
"Huh?" Inspector Gadget said.
Vincent raised his gun at fired at the control panel. The bullet bounced off, ricocheted off the corner mirror, shatering it, hit the other corner monitor, flew back to the control panel, and bounced off it, catching Inspector Gadget in the head. Gadget toppled back in his chair. "You're too late," he coughed. "Zenogias is already on his way to the Entity."
"The Entity?" Lucca said. She got no response. Inspector Gadget was dead.
Edge ran to the control panel and pressed the button to turn off the Tower attack. "That was close," Cid said. "I'm beat."
"There's no rest for the weary, I'm afraid," Cecilia said. "We still have to stop Zenogias."
Jane was unscrewing one of the shattered mirrors from its stand. "What are you doing?" Elmina asked.
Jane waved the monitor. "Here's our broken mirror."
"We got an angel's voice," Cait said. "It was pretty funny."
"I got a flash of light," Lucca said, holding up the totally white Polaroid picture.
"We've got everything, then," Rufus said. "Let's get back to the Nu planet."
| Next chapter: Duel Shock |