Silver slept well that night, being as tired as he was. The day before, Tailz made them practically run from the Ruins of Midgar to the nearby mountains; but, in reality, Silver was the only one running. Tailz seemed to keep the same pace as he did walking, but travelled much farther per step. It made no logical sense, but Silver didn't try to make sense of it, for he knew his Master was no normal human. Even when he did actions normally, they produced unexplained and even impossible results. "His control over the elements is especially spectacular, seeing how he must use Materia. But spells cast from Materia cannot be controlled, and still he does it. Unique, and yet, it seems normal to him."
Silver had been awake from a few minutes, due to the increasing wind and rain outside of the small cave they were in. He was still exhausted, however, and dared not open his eyes to inform Tailz that he was awake. He needed to rest, and he hoped if he stalled their journey long enough, the storm would pass on. He was convinced that Tailz would not allow that to happen, but since the Sun was not up yet, there was a chance the storm would at least dwindle from its furious state. The next second, however, disproved that.
"I know you are awake." Silver opened his eyes to find Tailz staring at him with his. "Ready to leave?"
"No where near." "Yeah."
"Liar." Tailz said, leaving the cave. "But you have no choice."
Silver left the comfort of the cave, and was immediately hit by the wind and the rain. "I know." He watched Tailz walk ahead, further into the maze of rock ahead of him. Looking up, Silver could barely make out the dark clouded sky among the rare lightning flash, telling him the storm would carry on for many more hours.
He looked back to the earth, and trailed after his Master. His torn and tattered clothes left him chilled, however, and wrapping his arms around himself did not help near enough. But he had no choice: he had to follow.
Amarant felt the heat of the sun hit his eyelids, alerting him to the morning of a new day. He was sill quite tired, however, so he didn't open his eyes or 'rise and shine.' A few moments was all it took for something to obstruct the sun's rays, and without that brightness in his eyes, Amarant felt it was time to get up. However, when he opened his eyes, he realized one thing: he wasn't even facing the window.
Once his eyes fully focused, he saw White Magic, just sitting in a chair while being engulfed by the bright sunlight. With a mirror in her hand, she bounced the bright light into Amarant's eyes, causing his hand to rise quickly and block the intrusion. "Time to get up." White said, putting the mirror on the chair as she rose.
"We have news, don't we?" White nodded. "Menschlord told me some of the message, and he is deciphering the rest as we speak. He should have that done by the time we get to the Conference Room."
"Alright." Amarant threw the blanket from him, revealing that he was still clothed. Putting on his shoes, they started towards the Conference Room.
"Staying prepared, I see." White said after a few steps.
"I'm not sure what to expect, or when, so I thought it would be for the best."
"That is the way to be."
Silence took hold over the conversation until they reached the Conference Room. Entering it saw Menschlord in the same seat he was the previous day, though this time he was shuffling papers in his hands as his feet rested on the table.
"A group of monks, who patrol the surrouding area of the Midgar Temple..." Menschlord started after Amarant and White took a seat. "...reported seeing and briefly speaking to two men. The descriptions given match Tailz and Silver."
"Nothing really new." White said.
"Indeed. But later the next day, two monks outside of the Temple reported seeing bursts of light closer to the Ruins. One claimed he saw lightning rise from the ground."
White raised an eyebrow in Menschlord's direction. " 'Lightning from the ground?' How reliable are these sources?"
"Hard to tell, but anything suspicious to be reported, as you know."
"True enough." White thought for a moment. "Those bursts of light could be related to Tailz in some way. We best go and have a look."
Amarant stood up quickly. "Let's do that."
"Slow down!" White said, stopping Amarant from racing towards the door. "We will leave soon enough. Menschlord, I want you to stay here and relay any important messages to us in the Mini Chocobo."
"As usual." Menschlord slowly got to his feet, then left the room. As he was leaving, White looked at Amarant. "Be sure to have all your battle gear with you: we don't know what we may encounter down there."
"Staying prepared." Amarant said quickly, echoing his actions from earlier. He then left the room, but at his normal pace, to retrieve his weapons.
The wind whipped Silver's body around the rocky path Tailz had chosen to traverse, being that it was the only 'path' that could be discerned in the darkness and the rain. Sharp and uneven stones jutted out from the earth where their feet landed, while stones the size of humans and larger were on both sides, keeping them going but one way: forward. And for all intents and purposes, that was exactly where they wanted to go. However, like the calm before a storm, it could not last forever.
Tailz stopped, and looked up. Silver mimiced his actions, for in front of them was a mighty stone wall that spanned as far as the eye could see in any direction, except for up. The ridge could be made out at times when the rain didn't seem to come down quite as hard as usual, but that did not make it any better.
"That ridge goes straight up, and it looks very smooth: I doubt we could find enough holds to climb this normally." Silver thought. He looked to his Master. "How are we supposed to get through this?"
"You'll see." Tailz said, though Silver could barely hear it through the storm around him. He bent his knees, and twisted his body so he was sideways to the wall with his hands facing Silver: to the apprentice, it looked like Tailz was preparing to jump as the wind whipped his hand around.
"What is he thinking, there is no way he can jump this! That ridge must be 15 metres high!" But soon, Silver was doubting himself. "I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. Heh, especially about jumping..."
Soon after Silver had assumed Tailz was going to jump the cliff, he seen his Master form fire within his hand, and it expanded into a large fireball. Silver knew immediately that Tailz meant to destroy the cliff so they could climb the rubble, or even possibly walk through the devastation he was to cause. He should have seen this course of action from the start: why go around obstacles when you have the power to destroy them?
Taking a few steps back because of the increasing heat of the growing fireball, Silver waited for his Master to fire. But Tailz seemed to be hesitating for some reason, so Silver thought of why. Then he realized it, and yelled out to Tailz. "If you create an explosion, you might cause an avalanche!!"
Tailz stood up, and held the fireball, now half the size of himself, in his stretched-out right hand. "Took you long enough to figure that out." The fireball shrunk in size, and absorbed back into Tailz. "Much longer and I would have fired, just to see you be engulfed in a wave of stone."
"Another test?" Silver asked. "I told you to stay on your guard, and you obviously took that only to mean your physical guard. You have to stay mentally prepared as well." He looked at the wall. "For instance, tell me how to surpass an obstacle you cannot get around without destroying it."
Silver thought for a moment, but said nothing, as nothing intelligent came immediately to mind. He looked around for any help to his thought process, but no such help was seen.
"You're looking in the wrong places." Tailz said. Silver looked at his master, whom stayed looking straight at the wall. Without any explanation, he ran at the wall, both of his hands immediately glowing blue. With one great leap, Tailz hit the wall, but did not fall: he stayed in place.
Then, Tailz began to climb the rockface, but his legs never touched it's surface. Silver watched as he seems to float up the wall with only his hands ever touching it. "Amazing...he scaled that massive wall in seconds...but how?"
"You have to look inside yourself to find the strength to climb mountains." Silver looked up and saw Tailz waiting for him on the ridge. Silver nodded, and approached the wall to see how Tailz achieved it. As he looked straight up it, he saw how his master ascended the obstacle.
"So you want me to use the ice daggers to proper myself as well?"
"No." Tailz held out his hands, which started to glow red nearly instantly. The next second, many tiny fireballs were were propelled from his hands, and each one sought out a dagger in the rock, and dissipated it. "You will use your own strength, not mine."
"And what if, one day, you are the one I derived strength from?" Silver looked up to see Tailz make no response, but instead, walk away from the ridge and go unseen. Silver scoffed at this, then returned his gaze to the rockface.
"Use my own strength..." Silver closed his eyes and focused, causing his own ice daggers to form within his hands. He opened his eyes, then stabbed the dagger in his right hand in the rock. Pulling himself up the cliff, he thrust the dagger in his left hand in the rockface, and prepared to withdraw the right ice dagger. But as he did, the left ice dagger snapped in two, sending Silver to the ground only few feet below.
"What the hell?" Silver said, looking at the broken handle in his left hand.
"Your power cannot compare to mine." Silver looked up to see Tailz standing on the ridge again. "You know this, yet you were not smart enough to think of that as you went to climb. Your daggers could not hold your weight, but you couldn't figure that out on your own without first failing in those circumstances."
Silver clenched his teeth in mild anger, then calmed himself. "Of course it couldn't be that I could not think of another way to climbing this wall, not that I wanted to prove my power matched yours in some egotistical match?"
"Your mind faltered either way, apprentice." Tailz again walked away from the ridge, leaving Silver to his devices.
Long did Silver stay standing on the base of the cliff, thinking of options and of anything Tailz said in the near past that would help him. During those thoughts, he remember when he told Tailz of his power to control the earth around them, and with that in mind, he devised a plan.
Once again, he closed his eyes and focused, but instead of ice forming, the ground started to rumble beneath his feet. Once Silver opened his eyes, the rumbling stopped, and he smiled. On the once sheer rockface was now blocky hand and footholds that Silver extracted to allow him to climb that Tailz had minutes ago. However, as he went to climb it, the wind seemed to return with increased violence, and the rain fall with increased speed: so hard was Silver concentrating that the weather had not affected him.
He got barely up 3 metres when he had to stop and regain some strength due to the wind trying to blow him off the cliff. "This is going to take some time." Silver said, and grabbed the next hold.
"Isn't this great."
"Can't just assume sun all around the world, Amarant."
"Yeah, I know, but one can hope."
White smiled as the rain battered the Mini Chocobo's windshield. She reached for the radio speaker and pressed the button on it's side. "Menschlord, what's the news on this weather?"
"It's staying for the day. Into tomorrow is a possibility, but unlikely." His response came through loud and clear.
"Dammit, all the evidence is going to be washed away!"
"I doubt all. If lightning truly did come from the ground, I doubt even a day's rain would erase that."
"Here's hoping you are right. I'll radio back in when we land at the Temple." She put down the radio.
"Temple?" Amarant said.
"The Temple of Ruins, so called because it is the closest thing to the Midgar Ruins that was barely affected by Meteor. That said, we cannot hope to find the battle site in this weather. It's daylight right now but you can't even tell because of these dark clouds!" She looked in all directions out of the small airship. "Looks like the info Mensch gave us is right: I don't see an end to these clouds in sight. We have to go to the Temple and wait it out."
"Guess we can talk to those two monks whom seen the lightning."
"Interrogate is more the word."
"Interrogate?"
"Monks are usually not fond of speaking of battle, unless that is their profession, like the monks at The Temple of the Ancients. We will, more or less, have to force it out of them. Most of the time, anyways." She looked at Amarant and smiled. "Who knows, maybe we'll get it easier than that out of them."
Amarant nodded his head. "One can hope."
White shook her head at Amarant. "Now don't start repeating your lines, you'll becoming boring fast and I'll have to abandon you."
"Head Mage White." The monk said, bowing to her. "Please follow me. The two you requested to speak to are waiting."
Amarant and White followed the monk into the Temple of Ruins. "How are the two cooperating?"
"They are speaking freely about it, though not openly and easily, as usual for such monks."
"Are they seperated?"
"Yes, they haven't spoke to each other since they told us of their sightings."
White smiled; not out of happiness, but assurance of a job done well. "Alright, let me in to talk with the first one."
"Of course." They walked down to the end of the corridor where Amarant seen three doors: one to the right, one to the left, and one in the middle. They stopped before entering any room.
"Amarant, Brother Trigojon, go in the middle room and watch the person whom I interview." The monk nodded, and opened the door to let Amarant in. He quickly followed, and closed the door.
Once inside the room, Amarant would never guess he was in a Temple. "This looks like an interrogation room from police headquarters." He immediately stated, looking at the cameras, recording instruments, and two-way mirrors on the left and right walls.
"Indeed, we had police advisors present when we renovated this part of the Temple." Brother Trigojon said. "Sometimes, we need to record everything. However, at times, audio is switched off, and we only look at the interviewee to take note of any nervous reactions or hesitation." He sat down and faced the glass on the left, then offered one to Amarant. "It can more important than the words spoken, depending on the situation."
Amarant nodded, and looking through the glass noticed White was already taking to the man, dressed in traditional monk garment. But suddenly, something out of the corner of his eye caused him to turn his head quickly, only to notice the recording machine was on, and the lights that got his attention were merely indicating the level of audio being recorded.
"Who is he?" Amarant asked.
"His name does not matter." Brother said. "All that matters is how he reacts."
Amarant agreed to this, then joined the monk in watching White throw a barrage of questions at the man. The man remained calm for a while, speaking what appeared to be steady words with no hesitation...until one question caused the man to almost immediately show beads of sweat.
"This is where you must truly watch every move he makes." The monk said. "For instance, he barely moved before, staying at full attention. But now his feet are tapping each other on the floor and his hands are gripped in nearly a death-lock." Amarant looked towards the man's apendiges and noticed these signs immediately. "His hands are just white."
"Tell-tale sign of fear, sir." Brother Trigojon said.
"It's Amarant."
The monk smiled. "Apologies Amarant. Now, back to business."
They continued to watch as the man went from nervous to calm in sporatic bursts, all the while noticing that White never changed: no matter what questions she may be asking or the way the monk was reacting, she never showed a change in pace.
After what seemed like hours, White stood up, and left the room. In seconds, she entered the middle room. "One of the longest 20 minutes of my life."
Amarant blinked a few times. "That's it? Only 20 minutes?"
The monk put his hand on Amarant's shoulder. "When not involving in direct actions, minutes seem like hours."
White nodded. "Now, what did you judge by his actions?" She looked first at Amarant.
Amarant, stuck in the spotlight on something that was new to him, froze up. "Umm...he was nervous?"
"I know that, did you read anything from his reactions?"
"Well...I don't know..." Amarant stammered, looking for words. "...maybe...maybe like he wasn't telling you everything?"
"You're half right." Brother Trigojon said. "It appeared to me like he was telling the truth. Just not all of the truth."
"That's what I read as well." White said. "Now, Amarant, keep on eye on the guy on the right, and see if you can see that as well."
White re-entered the middle room and looked at Amarant. "Well?"
"It was like a mirror-image." Amarant said, shrugging his shoulders. "They did all the same things."
"Indeed they did." The monk said. "Which states either of three things."
White nodded. "Either they are related, grew up together, or are both part of the same group." She looked at the one on the left. "I believe they are part of a group." She looked to the one on the right. "Although what group remains to be seen."
"What shall we do, Head Mage?"
"Release them. Until we get a view of the events they described, we cannot hold judgement. But do a background check on them to see what their histories are like."
The monk bowed. "I will." He left the room, and entered the one on the right, waving for him to step outside. He then quickly repeated those actions to the other monk.
"What is our plan?" Amarant asked.
"We sleep for now." White said. "I imagine you are draining from not only just sitting here, but from the ride."
Amarant nodded. "And then?"
"We leave early, weather permitting of course." Amarant nodded once more. He walked past her and left the room...only to immediately return. "Do I use the same room as before?"
"Actually, there is a guest there already. Go in the next room beyond it."
"Sounds like a plan." Amarant left again, and let Brother Trigojon in.
"Tri, keep a personal eye on those two. I feel they may not only be part of a group, but part of one that is not beneficial to any of us."
"You think they may be part of the rumoured return of ShinRa?"
"I don't want to assume the worst...just try and confirm it."
"Of course."
"Sir, we have received another communication."
"Same place of origin?"
"Yes. Temple of Ruins."
"Excellent. They are taking intelligent risks, and they are suceeding."
"Indeed they are, sir. Shall I read the message?"
"Of course."
" Confirmed: the traveler's name is Amarant, and he has the complete trust of Head Mage White Magic. The friend's name is Taliz, who may or may not be the killer from Kalm. Confirmed: both have mentioned the Black Materia. Unconfirmed: Who is actually seeking it. "
"Taliz...an odd name. But focus on him. A Head Mage would not assist somebody in finding the Black Materia. Taliz is the man to get."
"Seems as well sir, for the rest of the report is on Taliz. Taliz appears to closely resemble Sephiroth in looks, and travels with that seems to be a slave. Confirmed: Taliz has great control over any power, as confirmed through Zoom Goggles as he fought his slave. Can make lightning, fire and ice appear with little effort. Would think Taliz could decimate a small town with minimal effort. Note: Taliz was out-of-focus with goggles. Report could be flawed. "
"Very interesting...anything else?"
"A small bit, sir. Same evening, Taliz and slave headed towards the mountains, most likely to Junon. From there, transportation across the sea to Costa Del Sol is very possible. End of transmission. "
"He is slowly coming towards us. Time to formulate a new plan."
"Sir, shall I find everything I can about this man?"
"Everything, and more. I already have the basis from a great strategy...if his background fits into it."
"Silver." Tailz said, waking the slumbering apprentice. Silver looked at his Master in a haze, as his eyelids were barely open.
"Is it time?"
"Time for your death, if I wasn't here."
"What are you talking about..." Silver said, rubbing his eyes. Then he heard what Tailz said: a sound in front of them. His eyes snapped open in an instant, and seen a dozen wild wolves snarling and growling at the two outsiders in their territory. Silver unsheathed his sword and took a wide stance, ready for an attack. Tailz, however, did no such thing.
"Master, what the hell are you thinking!?" Tailz not only left his sword at his side, but he walked straight towards the wolves, showing no signs of taking any actions at all. The wolves wasted no time in seizing the opportunity.
"TAILZ!" Silver cried out as all the wolves started to run towards the lone threat, all of them ready to sink their teeth in soft flesh. But Tailz had other plans.
Silver could barely discern what his Master was doing, holding his right arm out with his palm facing the wolves, when a massive fireball shot out from it, towards the wolves. A quick yelp was heard, then Silver could see nothing for the dust and debris the fireball shot up, even though it did not hit the mountain.
"I don't give a dam how tired you are, if you fall asleep walking, you are asking for your life to be taken." Silver knew the voice of Tailz, but could not see him through the dust.
"I thought you said not to cause an explosion for fear of an avalanche! What if you did?"
"I can control my powers as such."
"How can you possibly have that much control?!" Silver yelled back, but got no response. The dust finally settled, and Silver could see Tailz looking in the same direction, his back to Silver's face.
"I do not know. But maybe that place will tell me." Silver approached his Master, and looked in his direction.
"Junon." Silver said.
"Yes." Tailz said. He then started walking down the mountain, towards the city.
Silver stood a moment longer before following his Master. It didn't take long from the stone of the great hills to block their view once more, telling him that Junon may be close, but a small journey still lies in wait until they reach it.
