After dropping off Cid and Amanda, the other three headed to Junon and landed on the airstrip.
Junon had changed, now that Shinra no longer existed to control it. The people who lived below the city adapted the upper part for fishing and made the waters clean again in only 200 years. Now, it was a place for artisans and fisherman, which made for a very odd relationship between the two halves of the populus.
Sandra, Charles, and John hopped off the Highwind and quickly ran to the street and hailed a cab. The cab pulled up and they got in. Then John saw that the driver was a Rashion, who used a special device to work the mechanics of the car. Charles noted John's dismay and snarled very quietly at him, "If you say one damn racist word, so help me, I'll tear your uncle dean-o a new bowl of shredded wimp."
John brushed the explorer aside. "Hmph. Don't see why I couldn't have gone with Amanda..."
Sandra heard this and decided to stay out of the conversation by telling the driver where to go.
Charles slapped his forehead. "You freakin' idiot. Can't you see that she's telling you to take a hike?"
"She couldn't possibly be doing such. I'm loaded."
Charles snorted. "Yeah, like a squirt gun. She's far too much for you, anyway. She'll do even worse damage to you in five seconds than I could in five hours." Charles smiled a little. "I figured she'd be going off with Cid.... It's pretty obvious what she thinks of him...."
Meanwhile, in Costa del Sol, Cid walked out of Sith Villa, brandishing three shiny red orbs. Amanda clapped as Cid blushed. He said, "You should have seen the guy who was keeping care of the place until the owners come back. He had no idea that treasure was in the basement, and now he's digging through all the crates."
Amanda grinned. "Well, is there any more treasure?"
"The largest collection of lint you've ever seen. And a rare description of the wild Moogle. You know, I didn't know that Moogles went through dance trends."
Amanda laughed. "You've got to be kidding me!"
Cid snickered. "Nope. Those little guys even had a disco period. According to the chart, it lasted two days." They laughed so hard they fell onto the sidewalk, then immediately got up after discovering how hot the pavement was.
Amanda looked out towards the beach. "We've got some time before the others get back... Let's have a beach party!"
Cid furrowed his brow. "Two people? Having a party?"
Amanda nodded and dragged Cid all the way to the swimsuit shop. After they got all changed, Amanda took a look at Cid's getup. It screamed 'surfer dude'. After some more laughter, they both ran down to the water and jumped in, which instantly spawned a splash fight. They enjoyed this for about twenty minutes, until someone screamed, "TORNADO!!!!"
Cid and Amanda quickly ran to the town square, where the all-too-familiar tornado started to approach. Cid whispered, "Something's wrong. There's no wind kicking up."
Amanda whispered back, "Maybe destruction's not what's in mind...."
The tornado lowered Tion to six feet above the ground, and he flew right up to the duo. "Having fun?" Tion said, in an uncharacteristically deep voice. "Enjoy it now. You can't stop me anymore, CLOUD......" He began to move in the direction of Corel Desert, but he hit his head on the Costa del Sol bar sign. Growling, Tion continued until he was high above the desert. He began to glow red.
Amanda and Cid stood in the middle of the square, paying close attention to what was happening.
Suddenly, 13 great knights appeared from the sky. But, instead of the great damage they usually do, they started digging into the sand. They stopped digging after thirty seconds, and started to surface. One kinght, after appearing, produced a white claw appeared from the bowels of the dirt. The Ruby WEAPON cropped up and bowed towards the tornado.
Cid could only look in horror at the new messenger of doom. But Amanda was less enthralled. She pulled at him and he snapped out of the trance. They started to leave the town, but Cid noticed something where Tion had banged his head. A yellow materia. Cid said, "Wait..."
He grabbed it, hoping beyond compare it was the mastered Enemy Skill materia or the mastered Mime materia. But it wasn't. It was the mastered Steal materia. Cid sighed. "Might as well keep it...."
Then the Highwind showed up. Charles shouted from the deck as he lowered a rope ladder, "Hey, you guys! Climb aboard!!"
Once on board, Cid and Sandra said at the same time, "Did you get the Summons?" They both nodded. Cid added, "But we've got a big problem."
Sandra replied, "Yes, we saw Ruby WEAPON from here. I suppose he erected Ruby because Cloud had not beaten it or Emerald WEAPON. And Tion probably wasn't interested in a headless Emerald WEAPON."
John puked once more. Charles, ignoring him, said, "So let's defeat it! We've got a bunch of orbs; we'll just summon its butt back into the ground!" Everybody grinned at the thought of a part of Tion's plan biting the big one. Sandra grabbed the wheel and headed for the desert.
John saw the gold-plated casino first. "YEAH!!! GOLD SAUCER!!!! Man, we've gotta go there after we win!"
Cid smiled. "Y'know, that may be the smartest thing you've said during this entire journey, John. Whaddya think, Amanda?"
She laughed. "Count me in! I'm always up for some fun!" Charles agreed.
Sandra couldn't join in on the happy conversation; she was watching the desert for the Ruby WEAPON. "I don't understand it....how does a big thing like that just disappear?"
Suddenly, everybody flew to the wall, like the vessel was moving all too quick in one direction. Cid screamed, "WE'VE BEEN HIT!!!"
The next twenty seconds were a blur as they stuck to the wall like glue. Then came the crash.
Cid got up first and helped everybody else up.
"Where are we?" Amanda muttered.
John said, dreamily, "Is this heaven?" Charles, the most coherent out of the bunch, walked out of the hole in the ship and said, "Maybe for you, John. We've hit the Gold Saucer."
A whole bunch of people came running up, along with the manager, Rekko. Rekko said, "What happened to you guys?"
Sandra replied, "We were hit by a large monster and we crashed in, so to speak. Think you could help us?"
Rekko laughed cheerfully. "Of course!! Monsters are a big part of the world!" The crowd around him stared at the oddball manager. He whispered to Charles, "Most people don't know, but monsters are everywhere. They just pretend to be human."
Charles knew the guy was nuts, but wasn't about to pass up the help. "Okay, then. Got any mechanics?"
Rekko laughed again. "Don't worry! My mechanics will have your ship fixed by tomorrow at maximum! And you can stay at the hotel until then!"
Cid got out and noticed that they had crashed into Rekko's museum. Many artifacts were there (like his ancestor, Dio), but the center exhibit was a large, shining sword with an almost purple glint.
"The Ultima Weapon...." Cid said in amazement.
Rekko caught Cid's actions and said, "Ah, you like? I'm not much for it, myself. I don't fancy myself a fighter."
Cid quickly said, "Can I borrow it?!"
Rekko thought for a bit, and said, "Eh, sure. Be sure to bring it back now." Cid nodded and headed off to the hotel.
"Oh, yeah?" Simon said to his friend. "I'll bet you five Cocoa-Chunks that I can beat you in a snowball fight anyday!"
Billy snorted at the offer and tightened his small mittens. "You're on, dork-pus...."
"Weasel-whiner!"
"Torpid-teaser!"
"SHINRA LACKEY!"
"Hey," Simon's dad said, looking up from his Arctic Farming magazine. "Hurl slushballs, not insults. You two are supposed to be best buddies, remember?"
Billy laughed. "We are, Mr. Simon! We can call each other names and nobody gets mad!"
Simon's dad chuckled. "Okay, then just...... HOLY--!" His eyes had glanced upward as the looming red apparition smashed a giant claw into the weapon shop.
He ran inside and screamed, "MARY! Get Janey and grab some money! We've gotta go, now!!!!"
Cid stroked the blade. It was sharp and shiny. His memories kept going back to having held the sword before, but he knew those were Cloud's memories. Then, a TV monitor in the upper corner of the room caught his attention.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this just in- A large monster has attacked the quaint village of Icicle Inn, reducing it to ashes. Thankfully, minimal lives were lost. Eyewitnesses said-"
Cid turned it off, like he needed silence to nurse a new theory. Sandra caught this and approached him. "What's wrong?"
"I figured out why all this is happening."
"I told you why already."
"But not everything..." Cid muttered, pacing. "What you didn't tell us was that the planet was orchestrating all the events to an extent." He shook the sword at her. "See this? Luck doesn't account for what we had in crashing into the right spot. And in the showdown, the planet's gonna do all it can to make me win."
Sandra smiled. "Good. Nice to have a heavyweight on our side, eh?" Cid shook his head. "But also, I know what me and Tion got from the Jenova inheritance. I got some physical features, like the eyes and the hair color. I have an innate reluctance to simply go and have fun. And I remember what Cloud experienced." Cid sat at a chair. Sandra sat beside him. He continued, "But the scary thing is Tion. If you haven't heard, he just trashed Icicle Inn by way of WEAPON. And it was pointless. Tion has inherited the madness and the violence, but not the form, the memories, or the victim status. Sephiroth had been done wrong, but Tion has no reason. He's mad without purpose, and the concept of the idea is frightening." Cid stood. "We need to take off." Suddenly, the head mechanic ran up to Cid and said, "All done, mac. Take off whenever you like."
The pudgy man walked to the transport tubes and Cid muttered, "Heavyweight..."
It didn't take long for them to find Ruby WEAPON again. He was walking in shallow water, heading in the direction of the desert. But he was a long while from the desert.
Charles said, "You know, I'll bet that he couldn't stand all of the attacks at once. Didn't Cloud and his buddies use a format so that one wouldn't attack while another was?"
Cid nodded, and said, "He's not in his natural habitat of sand. If we all attack, then his strength would be about nothing. Good idea, Charles."
After dropping off the other four on other sides of WEAPON, Cid put the ship in front of the beast and set it on hover. Climbing to the top, he screamed, "NOW!!!!" He let loose a combo Summon of Bahamut ZERO, Ramuh, and Alexander. Sandra and Amanda released Ifrit, Choco/Mog, Pheonix, and Typoon. Charles and John summoned Titan, Odin, Kjata, and Leviathan.
Ruby WEAPON howled in pain as all the summons hit, making a large flash of light. As everyone rubbed their eyes and let the color return to their paths of sight, they saw what was left of a shivering shell of a monster, not attacking, with a vague sense of life in its eyes.
Suddenly, Cid's head filled with an odd, gravely voice. The voice of the WEAPON.
Only you, Strife, could have beaten me, the voice echoed. In any form, you can beat me and my brethren. Proceed to my waiting master. He shall meet you at the site of your last battle.
Cid snarled. He piloted the Highwind close enough, then got out and cut off WEAPON's head, letting it fall and symbolize their victory.
As Sandra, John, and Charles opened a bottle of champagne for celebration of a small hiatus from danger, Cid sulked in the corner.
Amanda came over and sat beside him. "You look like you're not having fun. What's up?"
Cid muttered. "My number."
Amanda giggled. "Oh, come on. You're not going to die that easily. Anyway, I don't think you're even angry at all. I know some stuff about Cloud, and I know that he was a real party-pooper. You're probably just taking after him." She kissed his on the cheek.
Cid smiled, since he knew she was right to an extent, and he liked the kiss. "Okay, you win." He knew that what he was really doing was emulating Cloud's utter hatred for Sephiroth. A hatred that was generally unfounded in Cid's own life. He grabbed a glass and drank it slowly, enjoying it. Then he realized that now was not a time to relax. "Guys, we had better get Tion now."
John looked up to a foot and a half to the side of Cid's head, having drank five glasses already, and partway through his sixth. "But why now? Why can't we just take a bitty nap before we go? A bitty nap would do all.... One.... Two.... Nine.... Seven of us a bitty good...."
Amanda shouted in John's ear, "YOU COULDN'T REPULSE ME ANY MORE, BUT YOU EVENTUALLY WILL."
Charles furrowed his brow not in confusion, but in comprehension. "You know something, don't you?"
Cid nodded. "WEAPON spoke to me before it died. It said that Tion's waiting for me where our last battle took place. And we all know here that if Tion is kept 'unbusy', more lives will be lost. We can't take that chance."
Sandra looked pensive. "Last battle...... You think he meant Costa del Sol? Or maybe Wutai?"
Cid shook his head no. "The WEAPON also called me Strife, as in Cloud Strife. WEAPON prefers to think as me as my former life, so I assume that he meant the Crater. The North Cave."
As they all looked deep into the planet's personal unhealing wound, Cid's thoughts were crowded by the memories of Sephiroth's final moments, and the assurance of Aeris's well-being in the Lifestream.
Charles saw Cloud's despair in Cid's face, and patted him on the back. "Don't worry. Sephiroth, from what I know, was a powerful and incredibly strong fighter. Tion's just got a lot of rocks."
Cid nodded acknowledgement, then said, "The hole looks bigger. Think we could get the Highwind lower into it?"
Sandra grinned as they descended. The rocks were your normal shades of brown and gray.
Amanda gazed at the walls with slight worry. "I wonder what awaits us in there?"
Suddenly, the rocks began to glow greenish-white with vehemence. John started puking again, but the puke went up instead of down.
Charles roared, "The Lifestream's swelling! We've got a geyser!!"
Cid didn't remember the last minute, but when he woke, he was on the tip of a small hill. To either side of the hill, mountains. He could see that, past the large forest, was a volcano, but it was blue.
Sandra got up and whispered in awe, "Round Island...."
John got up and instantly saw the blue volcano. Still slightly drunk, he ran up the hill and stopped at the edge. "WE'RE IN THE AIR!!!!" John cried out.
Cid heard that; the situation dawned on him. "Heavyweight....."
Amanda, now up, said, "What?"
Cid continued, "With the planet on my side, anything could have happened on the ground. So now we're far from where the planet can use natural disasters."
Sandra agreed. "Clearly it is time for you to face him."
Charles got up and groaned, looking at a part of the ship. "The fuel cap's broken! Somebody get a rock to plug this thing up!"
Cid touched the wall of the blue volcano. "Materia.... Awfully cocky of him to think that he can make a fortress out of all of Cloud's blue Materia."
John, to the side, said, "I still don't see why Sandra stayed behind instead of me."
Charles whispered to John, "Because you've got the repairing capacity of a Cokatolis, that's why."
Amanda, going around the structure, said, "Hey! I found an opening!!"
Charles and John started towards her, but Cid grabbed Charles's shoulder. "I'm going to take a separate route. I've got an idea, y'see, and you have all the Summons with you. Use them until I get there."
Charles patted Cid's back once more and went off to Amanda. Cid grabbed a tree branch and began to climb.
Amanda, John, and Charles walked into the cavern. It was dark for a while, but then they could see. A skylight adorned the ceiling. It really did look like the inside of a volcano. And there, in the shadows, was a Rashion nose.
Charles snarled at his former partner. "Come out, Tion."
Tion stepped out of the darkness and promptly made everyone gasp. He was a monster of many colors, with a large spike of flesh for one shoulder and off-balance feet. His tail ended in a mace, and he had three eyes. But the most striking was his mane: It was white and stretched out to one side, like Tion had one wing.
Amanda wasted no time and at once summoned Typhoon. Tion's speed was amazing; he completely dodged it like a slow-motion arrow. Charles tried Bahamut ZERO, but Tion narrowly escaped. John threw the Choco/Mog orb at Tion's head, and Tion just caught it and laughed.
Then he held up two other red orbs. One glowed, and Bahamut came and whipped the butt out of the three protagonists. Then the other glowed. Hades came and cast all status effects on them. Tion muttered, "You fools........didn't get Vincent's........."
All of a sudden, Cid dropped from the volcano's top opening and plunged the Ultima Weapon into Tion, then quickly jumped away. Tion howled in pain, and turned on Cid. "YOU!!! WHERE WERE YOU?!"
Cid smiled. "I've overcome my hatred of Sephiroth. You won't see me acting irrationally."
They circled about each other, waiting for the other to strike. Cid struck first, but it was vocally. "So, I see you've used the Gravity materia to float the island up. Good job with a particularly strong spell. In fact, it'll probably still be floating after you're DEAD. Hey, kudos on your new look by the Transform materia. Very....... Sephiroth. Planning on getting many dates?!"
Tion, annoyed and angered, pounced for the hero. Cid moved quickly, like he was in and out of Tion in seconds, and then on the other side of the room.
Tion stopped; something was wrong. Cid called out to the Rashion, "Looking for these?"
Cid put the sword to his back and held up two orbs: The Steal materia and the Knights of the Round. "Try as you may, the planet helped me in the end. Nicely placed sign in Costa del Sol, huh?"
Tion screamed as Cid raised the red sphere high. "So long, Sephiroth...." he said.
Sandra had just fixed the fuel cap when she saw the four of them running towards the ship, with the happiest looks since Cloud and Tifa got hitched.
Cid saw Sandra out in the distance. He couldn't wait to tell her the gory details of what the Knights of the Round did to Tion's body. Amanda yelled out, "Whoopee!!!!!"
As they ran, they saw Sandra run to the edge of the hill and jump off.
Their run of victory became a run of shock.
They made it to the edge, but Sandra was long gone, falling.....
And then it hit Cid. Why Sandra killed herself at the first notice she had that they had won and Tion was dead. Correction: Sephiroth was dead. And he would be born again in 500 years' time. Who was to save the world then? Sandra- no, Bugenhagen- had to be there to guide the hero. But Cid was the hero. Cid knew what he had to do to assure that the planet didn't have to make the fluke of birth it did with Cid again.....
Amanda shouted once more as she watched her hero throw himself over the edge.
Cid heard her, and that was the last human noise he would ever hear. He started to wonder about her..... Amanda..... Did he love her?
Ain't she a looker? Charles had joked. He knew that the explorer was right about that.
He tried to push the thought away, and concentrate on the fall. He passed through clouds and more clouds, falling for a long time. It was more air than he had breathed in a long time. He could see the mountains of Wutai barely in the distance. He was high up on the island, he concluded.
The island where she was.
No! Cid tried to think to himself. Stop thinking about her! It's too late, anyway!
But he couldn't stop. The way she giggled, the way she was right about a lot of things, and the way that she made him have fun. It was all very appealing to him. Almost like she was haunting his soul. Her very essence seemed to appeal to his senses. And she wasn't even there.
Cid could see that he was falling into the Crater. He was aimed for the very center of the Crater. He would either crash on the rocks or fall into the Lifestream.
The Lifestream.........
It all began to make some sense to Cid- no, Cloud- now. Aeris.......
Amanda was almost exactly like Aeris. Smart, beautiful, sometimes giggly, and fun-loving. Same brown hair, same figure, and same drive in life. He wondered about how Jenova made him reborn with some same attributes as he passed by the Crater's rocks. Could the Ancients also be reborn with same properties? They weren't humans, and they had great links to the planet and the Lifestream. Who's to say that they couldn't reincarnate their being as well as their energy?
He muttered as he plunged into the Lifestream, "Have I just thrown myself from the arms of Aeris and not some other girl?"