DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy VII is property of SquareSoft, as are its plot, characters, etc. I'm making no profit from this page; I'm writing this simply for fun.
Yuffie stood by the chocobo she'd ridden through the stampede, one arm draped over its neck so it wouldn't run away. The young ninja couldn't figure out what was wrong, and apparently Red XIII and Cait Sith couldn't either. Something was wrong, that much was obvious. They all knew it, and whether it was because they had seen the stampede of chocobos or because they simply felt it, they didn't know. Perhaps it was a little of both.
Eventually, Cait Sith spoke from atop his green chocobo. "Let's just deal with Shinra for now. We can bother with whatever else is wrong at some other time. For now, let's just work with what we know about."
Slowly, Red nodded, shifting on his chocobo, trying to get more comfortable. "Alright then," he said, "We'll figure out why the chocobos stampeded later... For a start, let's just get to Costa Del Sol and tell Cloud and Tifa about the problem with Shinra."
Cait Sith's chocobo lifted its head a little and turned to look at Red. "Why don't you just ask us why we stampeded?" it said, in a decidedly feminine voice.
The other three chocobos looked up as well, bobbing their heads and voicing agreement.
Yuffie's mouth dropped open slightly, and her eyes got huge. "Wha....," she said intelligently, "It just... I mean... It..."
The green chocobo looked at her. "Spoke?" it said, "Sure I did. It's not so hard... And please don't call me 'it'. Please? We have names, you know."
Yuffie, Red, and Cait Sith continued to stare at the chocobos near them as the mog sat motionless, uncaring; it was, after all, just a stuffed toy. The chocobo that it sat on spread blue wings and the mog fell to the ground. The chocobo stretched and looked down at the mog. "Heavy thing," it said, "For a toy."
"Now," continued the green chocobo, "Can we introduce ourselves?"
Slowly, Red nodded. Cait Sith just stared at the talking chocobo on which he sat.
"My name," said the chocobo, "Is Kari." She gestured with a wing to Red's chocobo. "That's Amy."
She nodded towards the bird that Yuffie stood by. "This is Seth." She flipped her head towards the blue chocobo which had thrown the mog to the ground. "And there's Quaza," she finished.
"Hello," said Quaza, with a slight wave of the wing; a greeting, perhaps, a mimic of a wave. Seth was eyeing Yuffie with an unfriendly look. Amy shifted a little, trying to better balance Red's weight.
"Do you want us to tell you what happened?" Amy asked, glancing around at them.
"Y-yes," Yuffie managed, still half-convinced that she was going crazy. Chocobos stampeding was strange enough, but talking? Having names??
"There were these little brown things," said Seth, beginning the explanation. "Brown things with fur. With these big yellow eyes."
Quaza nodded. "They lit a big fire," he agreed, "On the plains. There was nowhere to go but this way."
"I'm not sure what they wanted," Amy said. "They didn't seem bad, but they weren't good either."
"There was something strange about them," Kari added. "They didn't seem right. Didn't seem to be doing what they should."
"And you know what they should be doing?" Red asked, finally gathering his thoughts, making them respond to his will under such a stressful and confusing situation.
"Not as such, no," Quaza said, shaking his head, "But we can tell that they... aren't... right." He looked at them, trying to judge if he'd gotten his point across.
Amy, realizing he hadn't, gave it a try. "It's like this. Um... Everything is from the Planet, right?" When they nodded, she continued. "So, it's like, the Planet decides what species needs to do what. And if they step outside of that, it isn't what was intended."
Kari nodded wisely. "If something doesn't do what it was supposed to, doesn't take it's responsiblity seriously... or maybe takes it too seriously... there could be bad trouble."
Seth nodded. "Yeah," he said, with more than a hint of disgust, "Last year was a perfect example of what could happen. Humans outstepped their boundaries. Tried to take something from the Planet. Put everyone in harm's way."
"Whoa!" exclaimed Yuffie. She had just lived through a stampede of giant birds, and now the same birds were trying to tell her how the world worked. "You're gonna tell me that this," she thumped a foot on the ground for emphasis, "Tells me what I can and can't do? And, not only that, but that you can tell that these little brown things with huge freak-eyes aren't doing what the Planet told them to? And that, because of them, the world is messed up? And all this from a chocobo?!?"
Seth moved away from Yuffie so that she no longer touched him. From his perch on top of Kari, Cait Sith shifted uncomfortably. "No one said that they were messing up the Planet," Amy said quietly.
"Yuffie doesn't mean that," Cait Sith said, "She's probably still trying to get past the stampede part. Give her a little time to let it sink in."
Yuffie glared at the cat, but said nothing. Red turned to Kari. "Can you tell us more? What the things are? What they should do? Why they aren't doing it?"
"Why one tried to kill me?" Cait Sith added under his breath.
"No," Quaza said, "We don't know much besides what we told you."
Red shook his head slowly. "Well, I suppose we still need to find Tifa and Cloud. Will you come with us?" he asked the chocobos.
Kari nodded, then Amy. Quaza considered for a brief moment, then he bobbed his head in agreement as well. Eyeing Yuffie with a less-than-happy look, Seth slowly nodded his consent.
Amy and Kari bent down to pick up the mog and replaced it on Quaza's back. Yuffie pulled herself onto Seth's back, holding tight to his yellow feathers. He turned around and glared at her, muttering, "That hurts". She took the hint and loosened her grip a little.
With that, Red crouched lower for balance as Amy began to move beneath him. The seven of them wove their way through the crowd of chocobos, and towards Costa Del Sol.
Reno had gotten rather good at this part of the job since Scarlet had taken over: half-listen to her yelling, nod when it seemed appropriate, add an occasional grunt of agreement. It worked well. Scarlet was kept happy, and Reno never had to listen to a word she said.
He was knocked abruptly out of his inner musings when Scarlet hit him. It shocked him so much that he didn't really register it for a moment. He'd let Scarlet rant and rave like she always did; he never expected her to do anything.
'You did it again!' she liked to exclaim, 'You f*#@ed up another mission!' She hadn't hit him hard, really; he'd taken a lot worse in his days as a Turk and before. Still, it was enough to have shocked Elena into silence. The girl had been trying to tell Scarlet why the mission's failure hadn't been their fault.
"Listen to me when I'm talking to you! I want the same respect you'd give to Rufus! Now get out!" Scarlet hissed, "And next time, get it right!"
Reno felt his face burning, and reached for his shock rod as a reflex. Rude put a calming hand on his arm though, and the anger passed. Elena swallowed and turned curtly. She left the room with Reno and Rude close behind.
As soon as the door was closed, Reno spoke. "She hit me!" It was loud, barely restrained, and Elena gave him a look. He continued, more quietly. "I don't believe that! How the hell was it our fault the equiptment she wanted was broke before we got there?!?"
"I can see how she might have thought we broke it..." Elena began.
Reno interrupted. "No, Elena. Lately, everything's our fault. The sky's falling? Why not blame it on the Turks! Everything else is their fault! Why not that, too?"
"Reno..." Rude said quietly. Something in Rude's voice told Reno to shut up, and he listened to it.
Reno shook his head, trying to put the experience behind him. He ran a hand through his hair and glared at the floor. When he looked up again, he had regained his composure.
Elena nodded, pleased that Reno hadn't lost his temper, as was so often the case. "Next mission," she said, taking a folded sheet of paper out of her breast pocket and reading from it. "Travel to Icicle lodge to retrieve Dr. Gast's equiptment and studies on Mako energy."
Vincent stood and walked to the door, no great feat; the shack was only about four paces wide.
He opened the door to see if it looked like the rain would stop anytime soon. The sight that met his eyes was not one he'd been expecting.
On all sides of the shack, perfectly blue, cloudless sky stretched away as far as the eye could see. Above the shack, and there alone, was a single, grey rain cloud pouring out its contents.
Quaza's feathers stood on end with the cold. "Strange weather for this time of year, isn't it?" he said.
"For this time of year?" Yuffie echoed, hugging herself to keep warm, "Strange for this century! It never snows in Costa Del Sol!"
Cait Sith stared about, his cat's eyes wide with wonder. "Damned if I thought I'd ever live to see this day," he muttered.
Red looked around at the children gleefully molding snow into spheres and tossing them back and forth. Since they only had clothes made for hot weather, the children had wrapped blankets around themselves so they could play outside in the cold.
When the seven of them arrived at Cloud and Tifa's villa, they dismounted the chocobos. Quaza stretched, knocking the mog to the ground. It landed in the snow.
Cait Sith spoke into the Starlight Phone, commanding it to carry him. The mog got to its feet, leving an indentation in the snow where it had fallen. It scooped the cat up in its huge stuffed arms and held him there, carrying him and keeping him warm.
Yuffie walked up to the door and knocked firmly, then stepped back. The door was answered by Cloud, wearing an outfit that probably would have given him a heat stroke in the town's normal weather. In other words, it consisted of pants and a long sleeved shirt.
"Yuffie!" Cloud exclaimed, "Red! Cait Si- uh, Reeve! What are you guys doing here?"
"Cait Sith's fine," the cat muttered from the mog's arms. As far as he figured, if he had to be Cait Sith, they might as well call him that.
"Come in," Cloud said, and stepped back to let them in the doorway.
As he went into the door, Red heard Kari say, "Of all the nerve! He didn't invite us in, or even say 'hi'!"
Quaza responded quietly with, "He doesn't know us... and I'm not sure sure we'd fit in the door even if we had been asked in."
Kari drew in a breath to argue, but Cloud closed the door before Red could hear what she said.
Tifa came out of the bedroom, brushing her hair and saying, "Cloud, who's... Oh!" She walked over to join them, tossing her hair back and leaving the brush on a piece of furniture as she passed.
She embraced Yuffie in a brief hug, then reached down and patted Red on the head. She didn't spot Cait Sith at first; he wasn't in his usual place atop the mog. When she did though, she reached down and scratched behind his ear.
"What're you doing here," she asked them. "It wouldn't have anything to do with the unusual weather, would it?"
Cloud scratched his head. "Yeah... awfully strange, isn't it?"
Red, Cait Sith, and Yuffie exchanged glances. Red shook his head. "We have a lot to tell you," he said finally.
"Well," Tifa said, "We have time. Sit down, get comfy....."
Yuffie plopped herself down in a chair, swinging her legs over the side so she could get a better look at everyone. Red leaned against the couch, swishing his tail slowly from side to side. Cait Sith climbed atop the mog and lay down, stretched out on his stomach. Tifa and Cloud sat down on the couch.
"So, what's up?" Cloud asked. And, together, they answered his question.
"Shinra......." said Cloud. "But... Rufus is dead. So are Hojo, Heidegger, and Scarlet. Reeve's right here. There's no one left to have gotten Shinra back on its feet, except the Turks."
"I know," Tifa agreed, nodding, "It's so strange." She rubbed her temples with her fingers. "And right when Shinra turns up again, things go screwy.... A little suspicious, isn't it?"
"But how could Shinra make snow in Costa Del Sol?" Yuffie objected, "Or start a fire in the Gold Saucer? Or make chocobos stampede?"
"Quaza said that the creatures with the big eyes made the chocobos stampede," Red pointed out.
Now on his back, laying on the mog, Cait Sith hung upside-down and looked at them. His crown was on the floor below him, where it had fallen when he shifted positions. "Doesn't it strike you as a little strange though?" he asked, "The Turks show up, and all this weird crap starts happening?"
Tifa shrugged, pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging them. "So, what are we going to do about it?"
"Well," said Cloud, "Even though we don't have much of a start on Shinra, we have more to work with there than with those... other things."
"Okay," Red agreed, "Sound enough logic. But where do we start?"
"We could check in Midgar," Yuffie suggested, "Or Junon. There always seems to be something happening in one of those places."
"Yeah," agreed Cait Sith, "Let's go to Junon first, since it's on the way, then go to Midgar and ask Barret if anything's happening there."
"Okay," said Tifa, "When do you want to go?"
"Soon," said Yuffie, "Or, better still, now! I'm sick of not having answers."
Cloud and Tifa exchanged a glance and stood. "Okay," Cloud said, "Let's go."
Yuffie jumped to her feet and Red rose slowly. Cait Sith picked up his crown and replaced it on his head. Then he ordered the mog to follow Red.
Just as Cloud opened the door to go out into the snow, Red stopped him.
"Cloud...." Red started, hesitantly.
Cloud turned from the door to see what the hold-up was. "What is it, Red?" he asked.
"Cloud..... You and Tifa.... Bring your weapons, okay? Just in case."