Chapter 07

Cait bounced onto the Highwind's bridge, where Cid stood, smoking a cigarette.

"Cid!" he exclaimed. "Come on to the conference room. Red said he found something in his books."

Cid nodded and stomped his cigarette out, following the stuffed cat.

Inside the conference room, Red and Nekura sat side by side at the table, crowded uncomfortaby on the haunches in their chairs. A pile of Canyon library books sat on the table in front of them. Tifa also sat beside them.

"Hurry," she called to Cid and Cait as soon as the entered the room. "Red found something."

Cid and Cait quickly took seats and Red pawed through one of the books. Nekura grabbed another one with her teeth and began to paw through it as well.

"Listen to this carefully," Red said.

"The Planet and Weapon - Creation of Weapon."

"The Planet is beileved, from ancient accounts left by the Cetra, to have entailed several monster like creatures known as WEAPONS. An account by Professor Gast of the Shin-Ra Corporation gives us details of a WEAPON's creation and purpose. WEAPONS, accourding to Gast as well as ancient records, are born from the Planet for the sole purpose of protecting it. Anything whatsoever that the Planet itself views as a thhreat will cause and unleashing of WEAPON. Every thousand years a WEAPON is created by default. Anytime a WEAPON is destroyed, the Planet will automatically replace it."

"Wait a minute," Cid suddenly interrupted. "What the hell has this got to do with our mission?"

"I'm getting to that," Red said, rolling his eyes at the brash pilot. He continueds.

"Ho is a WEAPON created? Accounts left by Professor Gast prove that WEAPONS are not created out of Maki, but instead a substance known as Zyba.

"Zyba is a natural element that is blue in color. It is unlike mako, as it has no afflilation with the lifestream or the Planet's Spirit Energy. zyba has energetic properties as recorded by Gast, for it is the 'lifeblood' of a WEAPON. Zyba is only contained in the Northern Crator, in the walls of caves where WEAPON is created. Zyba gives the WEAPONS life even while they are dormant, and is used to activate and 'charge' them. No research has been done on Zyba for fear of awakening a weapon in the process, as recorded by Professor Gast."

Red closed the book and pushed it towards the center of the table.

Tifa put her head in her hands and shook it slowly. Cid banged his fist on the table.

"So what does this mean?" he asked rhetorically. "That if we try to get some Zyba, we'll awaken all the WEAPONS again?"

"In addition to the fact that there may be more WEAPONS since many were recently destroyed," Nekura pointed out.

"At least we know were to look," Cait said sheepishly.

Cid rolled his eyes as Tifa rose and began to pace.

"I don't care," she said firmly. "Zyba is the only thing that will save Cloud's life. If I have to fight a thousand WEAPONS I will."

"We won't do Cloud any good if we're dead," Cid stated.

"If only Aeris and Tayeko were with us," Red said. "Perhaps they would have been able to talk to the Planet and explain everything to it."

"And what?" Cid began sarcastically. "Say, 'Hey Planet, we're gonna steal some more of your energy but we're doing it for a good reason, so don't send your mega monster body guards after us?'"

Red shook his head.

"I don't want to be responsible for unleashing the WEAPONS again," Tifa said. "But Cloud....I must help him."

Cid sighed in defeat. "I's suicide... but we understand, Teef. We want Cloud well again as much as you do. We'll go to the crater and check it out. Who knows, maybe the WEAPONS won't be too pissed off if we just take a little of their Zyba."

Tifa nodded and took Cid's hand across the table. "I hope so."

Sephiroth and Zack rode chocobos in the span of earth between Midgar and Junon, searching for Aeris and Tayeko. Sephiroth rode upon the gold chocobo he had long ago stolen from icicle inn, while Zack rode a black named Zeus.

"I was breeding this chocobo the past couple of weeks secretly," Zack said as they rode. "I know Aeris has been waiting for me to propose to her, and I was finally gonna do it, too. I was gonna give her Zeus as an engagement present. Believe it or not, she really loves black chocobos." he sighed.

Sephiroth remained silent. He heard Zack, but his mind was reeling with thought of Tayeko and their unborn children. "We must find them," he suddenly said.

"But where could they have possibly gone?" Zack asked. "Do you think they were kidnapped?"

Sephiroth clenched his jaw. "That fire cat Nanaki said he could smell the presence of another person in my house," he said. "So it is very possible."

Zack shook his head. "Look, Fort Condor. Maybe somone there has seen them."

Sephiroth and Zack steered their chocobos in the direction of Fort Condor, giving the birds a tap to speed them up. They reached the Fort a short time later, and greeted the man at the gate.

"General Sephiroth," the man said as they approached. "I am Baku. What brings you and your companion to Fort Condor?"

"My wife has dissapeared," Sephiroth answered. "Have you seen two women passing through this area?"

"Areris Gainsborough was one of them," Zack quickly added. "You know, the famous Ancient."

Baku put a hand to his chin. "Many a traveler pass by everyday," he said. "But I did see three women pass together on a gold chocobo a few days ago. I couldn't make them out from here, but I know it was three ladies."

"Three...?" Zack wondered aloud.

"Where were they headed?" Sephiroth asked.

"Seems like North to me," he answered.

"Let's go then," Sephiroth said.

"Wait, sir,: Baku stopped him. "Won't you come and have something to eat? We're supposed to be having a storm here soon, and I'm sure you could use the rest."

"We really must be going," Sephiroth insisted sternly.

"Come on, Seph," Zack said. "I'm starving, and I'm tired. Let's take it down. It will be nightfall soon anyway."

Sephiroth sighed in annoyance but agreed. "Fine, but we must set out at dawn tommorrow."

The people of Fort Condor gave Sephiroth and Zack dinner in which Zack consumed an enormous amount of food. He conversed with the men of Fort Condor, while Sephiroth barely ate and remained silent. He suddenly rose from the table.

"I am going to retire early," he announced. He nodded thanks to the Fort Condor people and retreated to the lower level guest house.

Zack continued chewing on a chicken leg. "He's just very worried," he exlpained to the others. "His wifes is pregnant with twins."

"You'll find them," one of the men said.

Sephiroth.

A soft, melodic voice entered Sephiroth's mind.

"Who's there?" Sephiroth screamed back. "Who's in my mind?"

Sephiroth, my child. You must listen to me.

"JENOVA!" Sephiroth screamed in near panic. "How is this possible? You are dead! Remove yourself from my mind!"

No, Sephiroth, I am not Jenova. I-

"LIAR!" Sephiroth spat in reply. "No other has ever entered into my mind. GET OUT!"

Sephiroth, calm down. I am not that creature.

"I will have to kill you again!" Sephiroth yelled. "You have taken Tayeko and Aeris, haven't you!?"

Sephiroth recieved no reply this time but instead found his world spinning around him.

When the spinning stopped, Sephiroth found himself laying on a grass flower bed surround by beautiful blue water. Birds chirped around and before him was a golden throne, where the Planet sat.

The gorgeous entity sat in her blue gown, her sky blue hair flowing around her pale face. A fawn stood beside her throne, and a white tiger lay at her feet.

"Where am I...?" Sephiroth asked aloud. "Planet?"

"Yes," the Planet answered. "You are in my throne room. I brought you here because you would not believe, I told you not ot fear."

"I don't understand," Sephiroth said. "You've never spoken to me before. I thought only Cetra could hear you."

"Listen to me Sephiroth," the Planet began. "I had to break a few rules to speak to you. You see, Aeris and Tayeko are the only too Cetra left. They are the only ones I could to talk to, and I spoke to them all the time. However, something has happened."

"They've disappeared!" Sephiroth declared.

"Yes, I know," the Planet answered. "And I am not able to communicate with them anymore. They cannot hear me. I do not know what has happened. I do know that they are to my north, by the Ancient City, I believe. I am fearful for my self and them. Not only that, but someone is trying to hurt me again."

"How?" Sephiroth asked.

"They are draining my final element. My WEAPONS are goiing to be unleashed, for they are growing angry. I can do nothing to stop them. You are the only person I could talk to, for you are close to Tayeko, a Cetra."

"What do you want?"

"I need you to find Aeris and Tayeko and make sure they are safe," the Planet said, pleading. "I cannot lose my last two Cetra."

"I also need you to find out whos taking my blood."

"Blood?" Sephiroth repeated.

"Yes," the Planet answered. "Spirit energy, or mako, keeps me going everyday. But my blood is what keeps my soul alive. And it is being taken."

"I only release a small amount of my blood, not the way mako is produced. I use it to keep my WEAPONS alive too. But someone is taking it."

"Let me show you something." she said.

She reached her left arm down by the white tiger's mouth. She whispered something to it and it suddenly snapped its jaws around her arm. She winced, and the tiger let go.

She held her arm out for Sephiroth to see. A glowing blue liquid was dripping down her arm from the wound.

"You see?" she said. My blood. It seeps out of me at place where I was wounded by Jenova so long ago. It is were my WEAPONS are stored. It;s being sucked out of me, like the mako was. Only this is worse, for I have far less of it."

"Blood..." Sephiroth thought, watching as the planet waved her hand over the wound and it suddenly disappeared.

"I beileve you may call it Zyba," the Planet said in a rather annoyed voice.

"Zyba!" Sephiroth exclaimed.

"You know of it then?" The Planet asked in a wary voice.

"I just know that someone I know with Mako poisoning was told that Zyba would cure them," he said.

"Really?!" thePlanet said. "So then they are taking all of it?!"

"But I don't see how," Sephiroth answered. "Tifa just left today, she couldn't have even reached the crator yet..."

"You must find out what is happening to me," the Planet begged. "Before it is too late. And you must quickly find Aeris and Tayeko and find out why I cannot communicate with them. I fear something is terribly wrong."

"Yes... I will," Sephiroth promised.

"I will be by your side, Sephiroth," the Planet said. "Head north."

And then, Sephiroth's world was again black.

Scarlet turned around upon hearing the door behind her open. Dr. Stephens stood in the frame, smiling at her as he closed the door behind him.

"Hello, Scarlet," he said. He was carrying a cardboard box in his arms. "How are you coming along?"

Scarlet sneered at him and turned back to the computer screen in the chair she was confined to.

Stephens walked up beside her and sat the box dwon. "Ross is rather pleased with your progress," Stephens told her. "He says thanks to your expertise, we will be able to start the project much sooner than orginally expected."

"I don't want your praise," Scarlet spat at him. "I wanted nothing to do with this project or this company at all!"

Stephens laughed. "Well, too late for regrets now." He removed a package of diskettes from the box. "There are forty nine disks here, Scarlet, one for each of our soldiers. We presently only have forty nine who are ready to under go the process, but more are in training. For now, I need you to copy the C-Soldier program you created onto each of these disks." He then removed a large helmet from the box.

"This is the C-Soldier helmet," he explained. "The disks will be inserted here. These wires," he pointed out some wires on the underside of the helmet, "will be inserted ino the nape of the neck, to be connected with the hosts' brain. And this little tube right here, is where the host will recieve Zyba flow."

"I don't understand this whole Zyba thing," Scarlet said.

Stephens laughed. "Its probably one of the few things in the world our dear former collegue Hojo never got his hands on. Ross discovered this magical element at the northern crator after Sephiroth was, well, first killed. Or was it the second time?"

Scarlet couldn't help but snicker at that.

"Anyway," Stephens continued, "Ross thought that Shin-Ra was gone for good, since Rufus had been rumored murdered by Diamond Weapon. Ross was determined to find a way to reclaim his title on the Planer at the top energy corporation. After all, you remember as well as I when Rufus and Jonathan were very young, President Shin-Ra monopolized the energy industry and ostracized Ross' fathers company in a rather violent matter. Well, Jonathan inherited his father's fortune and held onto it to re-start Ross Energy."

"Unfortunately, Rufus ended up not being dead and restarted Shin-Ra with wishy-washy old Reeve. Can you imagine how surprised we were to learn that he was longer using mako!"

"I was surprised as well," Scarlet said with a wave of her hand. "But after all thats happened to us in the past year, we finally realized that it is too much of a strain on the Planet to use mako. And no one on the Planet wanted to use mako reactors after Meteor. Reeve came up with the brilliant idea of collecting electricity from lightning. He said he'd been working on it for years, but he never disclosed that to us in the old days."

"Well, Jonathan's discovery was much better," Stephens bragged. "He found that Zyba could be used as energy much like Mako. And how convient for Icicle Inn to be the only part of the world to still refuse Shin-Ra power after Meteor. It is right by the Northern Crator, making it very easy to connect and for Ross to get started again. And, the people of Icicle Inn were quite impressed with it."

"How come no one ever knew about Zyba before?" Scarlet asked.

"Ha, ha," Stephens laughed. "We knew about it, Scarlet, for years. Hojo knew damn well of it, but he was so damn preoccupied with Jenova that he never realized that it was a useful element and not just something used to harbor WEAPON."

"WEAPON!" Scarlet exclaimed. She thought back to when she, Rufus, Heideggar, and Hojo were in the Northern Crator, where they had thought was the Promised Land. She remembwer the blue colored cave, and the eye of WEAPON opening and staring down upon her, sending a chill of sheer terror into her bones.

"That was what we thought was the Promised Land!" she blurted out suddenly. "That area was Mako rich! Sephiroth was stored there!"

"Sure," Stephens answered. "But Zyba is only located within the caves where WEAPON resides. After all, there were many WEAPONS there, correct?"

"Yes."

"Zyba is not spirit energy like Mako. It doesn't come from our dead family member or dead birds and trees. It has nothing to do with the Lifestream. Therefore its use is not dangerous like the use of Mako."

"But what about the WEAPONS?" Scarlet flared at him. "What if they awaken because of this?"

"Scarlet, did you forget that all of the weapons have been destroyed? All five of them," he reminded her.

Scarlet sighed.

"Anyway, that's enough chit-chat," Stephens told her. "Get that work done immediately, or else I won't bring you anything to eat, and you know what else can happen."

"I don't want any of that disgusting slop you call food anyway," she called after him as he began to retreat to the door. He smirked at her and left the room.

Scarlet looked down at the disks, shaking her head.

"I hope I can be forgiven for this," she said to herself.

Reno was exhausted by the time he finally reached the Junon Inn, though he wasn't sure if it were because of the long day he spent spying on Ross's Energy floor or if it were the result of too many after work drinks. Either way, he was joyful to be back at the inn.

He spotted Faiza sitting behind the counter, looking down at her nails. Her eyes shot up as he entered, and she offered him a smile.

"Working the late shift, eh?" Reno said.

"Yah," she answered. She looked back down.

"Hey, did Rude come back yet?" Reno asked. "Did you see him go up?"

The way Faiza's face flared Reno swore he might have cursed her out instead of asking a simple question. She pounded her small fists on the countertop.

"Yes, I saw him!" she cried with sudden fury. "He waltzed in here at eleven oh five and said hello to me, then walked his laconic self back upstairs." She fumed, blowing a lock of curly burgandy hair out of her face.

"So?" Reno made the mistake of saying.

"We were supposed to go out tonight, goddamnit!" She roared, taking her frustration on the countertop. "He promised to take me to Casey's-On-The-Dock at ten p.m., but then he never showed. Then he comes home an hour late and walks by me, saying hello and telling me he'll talk to me in the morning."

Reno winced at her outburst but quickly smirked at her. "He forgot," he said simply.

"Of course he forgot!" Faiza yelled. "Men!"

Reno shrugged and turned to go up the stairs, unable to keep himself from laughing at the situation Rude had gotten himself into. He made his way to their room and entered.

Rude was the only one there, and was reading a book quietly at the desk. He was so engrossed in his book that he didn't realize his redhaired partner had arrived. Reno slammed the door shut to gain his attention.

Instead of being startle, Rude slowly looked up from his book and put one eye on Reno. "Hello, Reno. How was your day?"

Reno laughed. "Me? My day was fine. I found out some killer information about Ross, and then afterwards I headed over to the Junon Tavern for a couple of drinks. Your day was worse, I imagine."

"No," Rude said. "Actually, I found out that Ross has - "

"No," Reno said laughing. "Not that, pal. Weren't you supposed to be at Casey's right now with a certain Junon In receptionist?"

Rude's face shattered and fell like a precious peice of china crashing to the floor. Reno smirked and plopped on the bed.

"I just saw Faiza on my way up," he told him. "She was two seconds away from launching herself into space with all that female bitchiness."

Rude just shook his head slowly. "How could I forget?" He asked himself. "I know she must be angry with me."

"That she is," Reno said, leaning his head against his pillow. He closed his eyes.

After a few moments of silence, Reno looked up at Rude.

"Ey Rude," he said in a voice that held none of its previous jest. "Mind if I spoke to you about something?"

Rude shook the thoughts of an angry Faiza out of his mind and turned to Reno. "Yeah, what is it?"

Reno stared up at the ceiling, not looking in Rude's face. "Remember a couple weeks back when I was raving and ranting and you thought it was because I missed Yuffie?"

"Sure," Rude answered. Now it was his turn to smile. "What of it?"

"It had nothing to do with Yuffie," Reno said. "But there was something..."

Rude waited patiently for Reno to continue, but it seemed like he had lost his voice. "What?" he finally asked.

Reno struggled with the words. "Its just that... well, lately, it seems like everybody is settling down. That prick Cloud hooked up with Tifa, Tseng and Elena are just soooo in love that it makes me sick. Rufus has a girlfriend now, even if she is too young for him, and hell, even Sephiroth is married. There was a time when women were dying to get with him, sure, but there was also a time when everyone was dying if they even were in a two mile radius of him. Am I right, or did everyone forget that?"

Rude chuckled.

"Even you've got a girl now, Rude," Reno continued somberly. "Everything's changing around me. I'm the only bachelor left."

"Randy's a bachelor," Rude stated.

"Don't beileve that crock of shit," Reno replied. "Randy's just a rake. He's got a girlfriend in Midgar that he traipses home to every so often."

"Really?" Rude said, stunned. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah, well, I didn't either, till I heard him sneaking on the phone with her once. Promising that he'd be home real soon with lots of rent money."

Rude laughed.

Reno shook his head and stared up at the ceiling again. "I shouldn't talk, though. I've always been a rake. I probably always will. Maybe that's why I can't find just one, decent woman."

"So that's what this is about," Rude realized, raising an eyebrow. "It had nothing to do with Yuffie. Old Reno is ready to settle down."

"I never said anything like that," Reno immediately informed Rude. "I just.... I guess... aww, forget it."

"No, Reno," Rude prodded. "Go ahead. You can trust me, I'll never do anything to deflate your ego."

Reno had to smile at that. "Well, I know Rude. That's the reason why I'm speaking to you. There's nobody else I trust more, especially with something like this."

Rude nodded at the compliment but urged Reno to continue.

Reno couldn't without first reaching into the bedside table drawer and grasping a flask of whiskey. He downed a great deal of it and turned back to his friend.

"As I was saying... I just, sometimes I'm a little jealous of guys like Cloud and Zack and Sephiroth. Shit, I would never admit it... but, they've all got beautiful, faithful women who just adore them. If someone as stupid as Cloud can wind up with chick as magnificent as Tifa, then there's gotta be someone out there for me. And Sephiroth, evil, ex-murdering Sephiroth, with that exotic Cetra beauty. " He took another sip from the flask. "Is this world just horribly unfair, or are they doing something that the rest of us don't know about?"

Rude was about to respond, but Reno continued on his drunken rage.

"Rufus thinks he's so slick, wooing that pretty young girl of his. You know Kat spends most of her time living with Rufus in his mansion?"

Rude nodded and again tried to get a word in.

"Tseng and Elena are the worst," Reno continued his dramatics. "In all the years I've known him, I never thought Tseng would ever fall in love with anybody. Especially a co-worker. Now the two of em are inseperable. To think!" he shouted, gesturing his hand to a bed on the other side of the room, "That they share a bed when were out on the field on a mission! I know you hear Elena giggling every night under those covers. Its disgusting."

Rude put a hand to his forehead. He knew whatever Reno had at the bar combined with his current flask was putting him into another one of his tirades.

"And now you, Rude. You and you pretty little innkeeper girl. Where's my pickins? What am I doing wrond?"

"Listen," Rude said in a booming voice. "Just listen, and I will tell you."

Reno's mouth was still open, but he nodded and carefully closed it. He reached into his pocket and produced his cigarette pack, pulling one out and lighting it.

"We've all been like you are now, Reno," Rude said. "Most of us have been womanizers with little respect for women, like Zack and Rufus, and some of us have never paid much attention to women at all, like myself and Tseng, or Sephiroth. But there's always that someone out there who changes you around."

"Where is she?" Reno barked.

"Wait just a second," Rude said. "First of all,you don't help yourself by picking girls up in bars and taking them straight to bed. You aren't going to find your soulmate that way. You're only going want to leave her right away, and she's only going to want to stay with you for the sex."

Reno was surprised with Rude's sudden wisdom.

"Just give it time, Reno. You'll meet her one day. And when you see her, you'll know right away. You'll want to do whatever you can for her, and you'll want to be with her all the time. That's how you'll know. You can't just go outside looking for her. You have to give it time, let it happen naturally."

Reno did not look pleased by this answer.

"Don't worry," Rude said, turning back to his book. "Your day is coming."

Reno rolled over onto his stomach and closed his eyes. "Thanks for the advice, Rude," he said in a rare serious tone. "Really. Wake me up when the others get here."

"Sure," Rude said, smiling at his friend.

Tseng entered the Junon hotel room where he and the Turks were staying on their current mission. As he closed the door behing him, he noticed that most of his team was already there. Elena was sprawled across her bed with a magazine, and immediately diverted her attention from her reading to him. Rude sat at the desk, a beer in his hand. He seemed to not even noticed that Tseng had arrived. Reno was laying across his own bed, his hands behing his head and a drunken smile plastered on his lips.

"I'm glad you all stayed up to wait for me," Tseng said flatly. "We're going to go over our reports together."

Reno sat up eagerly. "We've got a lot to tell you, boss."

"Where's Randy?" Tseng asked.

As if on cue, Randy appeared out of the bathroom. He was wearing his Turk uniform - sort of. The pants were obviously three sizes too big, nearly falling off his waist and exposing his choco-patterned boxer shorts. He wore a sleeveless white muscle shirt instead of his white dress shirt, and he held his suit jacket slung over his lefts arm. A fresh cigarette was lit in his hand.

"Whew!" Reno exclaimed, waving his hand in front of his face. "What kind of nuclear waste did you just dump?"

"Shut up," Randy spat at him.

"What sort of way is that to wear your uniform?" Tseng immediately asked. "Rufus would not be pleased."

"Look at Reno!" Randy said, looking for a scapegoat. "He's just as bad."

"If not worse," Elena quietly commented.

Reno pointed a finger at her. "You- shut up." He turned back to Randy. "I've been a Turk for years, I've earned it," he responded. "Nobody's gonna tell me how to dress, because they know I get the job done."

Randy rolled his eyes.

"It doesn't matter," Tseng said, sitting on his bed. "I know it's rather late, but we have business. Who wants to go first?"

"I will," Randy said with great enthusiasm.

"Okay," Tseng nodded. "What did you learn?"

Randy puffed out his chest like a proud soldier as he began. "Well, while investigating the Intelligene Deparment, sir, I learned that Ross knows that we know about him and they want to either declare war or assassinate President Rufus and Vice President Reeve."

"Oh!" Elena cried in excitement, sitting upright on her bed.

"Assasinate?!" Tseng repeated. "Oh, Rufus will not be pleased. I'd better get this report to him first thing in the morning."

"War?" Reno repeated. "How are they gonna declare war? They got a friggin' army or something?"

"Yes," Rude answered. Everyone turned to him.

"What is it, Rude?" Tseng asked.

Rude shook his head. "They're developing all kinds of crazy weapons," he said. "I even stole some of the plans from the warehouse." He reached into his pocket and produced a folded series of papers.

Tseng took the papers and nodded. "Excellent, I'll have to include these with the report."

"Also," Rude continued, "I think they're starting some sort of cyber army."

"Cyber army?" Tseng repeated.

"Look at the last couple of papers," Rude said.

"See!" Randy suddenly exclaimed and lept up. "I told you! I told Rufus too! Didn't I? I found that out before I was even a Turk."

"That you did, Sherlock, ten points for you," Reno said. Randy, in his excitement, missed his sarcasm.

"Well, Reno, what do you know?" Tseng asked the redhead.

"Oh, only that Ross' new energy is some pretty blue liquid called Zyba, and that they get it from the Northern Cave," he said nonchalantly.

"Zyba," Rude repeated. "They're using that in some weapons too."

Tseng shook his head. "I couldn't find out much in the Science department, for it was barricaded with surprising security. This makes me very suspicious."

"They probably have some nasty tricks up their labcoat sleeves," Reno commented. "What about you, Elena?"

"Well... We're getting along great. He loves to take me out and spend money on him, the other night he brought me to Midgar in his helicopter. He took me to see the 25th anniversary production of 'Loveless', and then we went to dinner in a very expensive resteruant.

Reno could have sworn he saw Tseng's eyebrows twitch.

"Is that where you got that bracelet?" he suddenly asked. Elena looked down at a diamond bracelet on her wrist.

"Yes... he wants me to wear it whenever I'm around him."

"Take if off now," Tseng said. "Your not around him now."

Elena blushed with embarrassment both at being chastised and at being the object of Tseng's obvious jealousy. She removed the bracelet and placed it by her bed.

Randy inspected it. "I could probably pawn that for a whole lot of gil..." he pondered aloud.

"Don't even try it," Elena warned. Not until my mission is finished."

"Well... regardgless, this is all very troublesome..." Tseng said. "I probably should call a copter and leave for Midgar tonight, the President will want this information immediately." He rose.

"You all are to remain in Junon until further orders are given. For now, you have a break, your mission is completed. Except you, Elena. You'll have to continue your mission. I'll speak to you personally about your situation after I deliver this to the President."

"Okay," Elena said rather shyly.

"Well, since we're off," Reno said, rising as well, "I'd better get to my meeting with Jack."

"Jack?" Tseng repeated.

"Daniels," Rude replied, and he and Randy rose to join Reno as well.

"What?" Elena cried. "All three of you are gonna leave me here by myself to go and get drunk?"

"You're welcome to come, Babe," Reno said with a smirk.

"I'd rather not be seen with you in public when you're acting like fools," she remarked. "Go have fun."

Tseng said goodbye, laughing, and left to catch a helicopter ride to Midgar.

"Have fun in here by yourself," Randy told Elena.

"It's after one a.m., idiot. I need to sleep. My mission's not yet over, remember?"

Reno and Randy both laughed as they followed Rude out the door.