Final Fantasy VI 1/2 - the Adventures of Wedge by Andrew Wong Chapter One - Narshe A cold, dry wind blew across the barren wasteland that was the country of Narshe. Past the mines it blew, howling and sending a shudder through the miners toiling there. Lancing through the town, the wind disrupted the usual calm and warmth of Narshe, leaving a chill in the inhabitants that would not soon be dispelled. The wind howled out into the tundra, where it spent its fury impotently on three steel-bound figures looming silently over the oblivious town. The first spoke: "There's the town..." "Hard to believe an Esper's been found intact there, 1000 years after the War of the Magi," the second replied. "Think it's still alive, Wedge?" "Probably, Vicks... judging from the urgency of our orders. We'll approach from the east. Move out!" With that, the two armored Magitek soldiers began the assault on the town, with the third figure trailing silently behind... ***** "Vicks! Flank the Whelk on the left, I'll take the right! You, girl, fire your missiles straight up the middle. And remember - don't hit it when it pulls its head in!" Wedge veered off to the right, launching massive bolts of flame from his TekArmor and burning one eye completely off its stalk. Screaming in agony, the Whelk thrashed and lurched toward Wedge - only to have its head frozen in place by a high - velocity stream of liquid nitrogen. Vicks, having moved into the Whelk's blind spot, kept the freeze on the Whelk, reducing its agility and slowing it down. Seeing itself in major trouble, the Whelk attempted to retreat into its shell, but its movements were impeded by the cold. Its one good eye swiveled around, looking for a means of escape - but the Whelk's last vision was of a missile disappearing down its gaping, frozen throat, and behind it a mass of neon green hair. "Good fight. Is everyone all right?" Wedge looked up from the inspection of his Magitek armor and nodded. "It got me a bit on the first pass, and I'm a bit scorched from the backlash, but I'll be fine. Are you and the girl all right?" Vicks waved the question away, but looked uneasily at the third Magitek soldier. She had not even dismounted from her armor after the battle. "I've heard of dedication, but that Slave Crown on her head..." Vicks shuddered. "This must be one of Kefka's twisted plots. General Leo would never have done something like this, not for control of the world." Wedge shook his head. "It's not for us to question, I suppose. We only have to obey. But my private opinion? I'm with you." He stood up and began to climb back into his armor. "Shall we proceed?" ***** "So this is the frozen Esper," muttered Wedge. The three soldiers circled around the massive block of ice, prison to a powerful being from long ago. "Don't get too close... we don't want to wake it up until R&D gets here - whaaa??" Vicks jerked backward, his TekArmor backing off in response to his flinch. The Esper had begun to shimmer inside its ice crystal, an eerie sapphire glow suffusing the cavern. Without thinking, Wedge and Vicks assumed battle formation. The girl, however, had other plans... "Hey you! Girl! Get back, that's dangerous!" Oblivious to Vicks' shouts, the slender figure atop the Magitek armor advanced on the glowing Esper. As she neared the Esper, she also began to shine with a reciprocal light. "Damn, that brat is gonna get us all fried! Hey... wait... do you know something we don't? Where's that light coming from?! UWAAAA!!!" The world exploded into a wall of fiery white light and Wedge knew nothing more. Chapter 2 - Midgar "Unghhh..." Wedge sat up. "Where am I?" Looking around, he saw himself in a large building. A pale green glow all around him reminded him of... "Damn! The Esper! Vicks, where are you?" Wedge leapt up and looked around wildly. His Magitek armor was right beside him, apparently undamaged, but he was just as apparently no longer in Narshe. After checking his armor out and remounting, he decided to reconnoiter a bit. "Vicks... wherever you are, I hope you're all right." Wedge seemed to be in the main room of a power plant of some sort - pipes ran haphazardly along the walls to plunge into vats of steaming liquid, from which the green glow emanated. Here and there chains dangled from the ceiling, some unadorned, some supporting crates or more of the pipes. He grunted. "Could be worse... at least I'm still in civilization. Perhaps I got knocked out and Vicks took me to the Imperial Magitek Research facility - I've always wanted to see the inside of that. Wait, but he wouldn't have just left me lying on the ground here. I think I'd better find out where I really am." He looked for a door or other exit, but none was forthcoming. All possible exits were blocked by encoded doors. He shrugged unconcernedly. "That's what Magitek armor's for, anyway. ICE BEAM!" He fired a blast of supercold nitrogen at one of the doors, freezing it solid - and making it extremely brittle. Crouching behind his controls, he set his TekArmor on RUN and smashed through the door - right into the middle of a guardroom. "What the hell is that thing!" shouted a guardsman. "Don't know, but we'd better take it out or Heidegger will have our rear ends for breakfast!" There were six guards, well trained by the looks of it. They formed up into battle formation immediately, despite having been taken by surprise. "FIRE BEAM!" Two corpses fell to the floor, immolated. Wedge smiled. Was this the best they could do? Bullets spanged harmlessly off the Magitek armor as the remaining soldiers knocked the table over to provide some cover. It was a futile effort, though; one kick from the TekArmor's mighty foot gear splintered the table and sent the guards scattering. "It's no good! Call for reinforcements!" One of the guards ran out the door as Wedge sent 50,000 volts of electricity through the remaining three fighters with a Bolt Beam. Surveying the ruins of the guardroom, Wedge frowned. These were definitely not Imperial troops - they wore blue uniforms, not brown or green. Examining one of the bodies, he found a strange insignia that read "ShinRa." "ShinRa? What's that?" Wedge pondered. "And these fools mentioned someone named 'Heidegger.' I've never heard of anyone in the Empire named Heidegger." "Never heard of Heidegger, eh? And not of ShinRa either?" The voice, rough and arrogant, came from the door. Wedge looked up. A man stood in the entryway. He had red hair, long at the bangs, and wore a black leather jacket. He also carried a rod with a knob at its end. "Where have you been for the past ten years, the center of the earth?" "Who are you? Where am I?" Wedge advanced menacingly on him. The other man looked up at him, undaunted. "Tell me, or else!" The man sneered. "Hah! It'll take more than a hunk of metal an an armor-bound moron to stop one of the Turks. The name's Reno. You're in Mako Reactor #1, and you're also in deep trouble. " He extended his rod towards Wedge, knob-first. "Are you gonna come quietly, or do I play with you for a while?" Wedge stared in disbelief. This young sap needed to be taught a lesson. No one could withstand the power of a fully armored Magitek soldier of the Empire. "Bring it on, chump. Let's see what you've got. BOLT BEAM!" A blast of lightning lanced out of the armor, impacting on the Turk's rod and sending him flying backwards. "That'll show you to laugh at the might of an Imperial Magitek solder." Incredibly, the man stood up. He dusted himself off. "I think it'll be me having the last laugh, jerk. Electromag rod!" Sprinting towards Wedge, he jabbed his stick at Wedge- and sent a return discharge into the TekArmor. All of Wedge's systems went critical, and he flung himself out of the armor before it shut down completely. "Damn you! Now you'll pay!" Wedge drew his sword and charged Reno. "GRUDGE!" The other man dodged, but not before Wedge's slash laid him open from chin to eye. Reno dabbed at his face wonderingly. He looked at his blood, and smeared it between thumb and forefinger. "Enough of this foolishness. My orders are to bring you and your armor in - intact. Pyramid!" An incadescent spark flew from Reno's stick, engulfing Wedge and blinding him momentarily. When he could see once more, he was surrounded by a glowing pyramid of energy. "Let me out, damn you! You can't hold me here! I'm a soldier of the Empire! Just wait until Kefka hears of this! He'll bring the full strength of the Empire to bear on you! You're doomed! Hahaha!!" Reno shook his head and smirked as he walked away from the hapless Wedge. Chapter 3 - ShinRa "Hee ehe hee! Well well well... and what do we have here, specimen 26?" Wedge glared balefully at the chuckling scientist outside his glass prison. "The name's WEDGE. I'm not a specimen. I'm an Imperial Magitek soldier. Release me, and give me back my armor." It was a useless statement, Wedge knew. He'd only been uttering it for the last six hours, after they transported him, still under Reno's pyramid, to the 67th floor of a massive building called the ShinRa Building. He'd been poked and prodded, and had all sorts of unpleasant instruments stuck in various parts of his body. Finally, just when he thought they would never leave off the experiments, he had been brought to this chamber. "What do you want with me." "Ehee hee heh. Well, you are a very interesting case study, specimen 26. You show up from INSIDE a mako reactor, using technology we've never seen. You wipe out an entire squad of guards, and actually give Reno a hard time before he apprehends you. Somehow, you also appear to be resistant to BOTH mako and JENOVA cells. Your body instantly rejected both when we injected you with them." Wedge felt waves of revulsion seep through him. "You injected me with WHAT?" The man ignored him. "No ordinary human is resistant to BOTH. So, where did you come from? What ARE you?" "I told you. I am a Magitek soldier from the Empire. My hometown is Vector. I don't know anything about this... this mako or JENOVA or whatever else you have going on here. All I know is I want out, I want my armor back, and I want to return to the Empire." Wedge sighed. The man didn't seem to be paying any attention to him at all." "The next step, I think , is to subject him to genetic testing, I believe. Yes, yes, of course. And, definitely, I must see his reactions to the other specimens... What? What is it?" An orderly had run up to him, waving a sheaf of paper. "Professor Hojo! Here are the latest reports you requested, sir. I'll get back to work now, sir!" Casting a quick, pitying glance at Wedge, the orderly disappeared into an adjoining room. "Interesting... very, very interesting. Do you know what these reports say? No, of course you don't. You, specimen 26, don't belong to this universe. Your quantum structure is constantly in flux, allowing you to interact with this universe but not allowing it to tamper with you. In short, you can fight, eat, breathe, go to the bathroom, anything normal you want in this continuum. But you can't be killed or altered in any way. Fascinating!" He flipped through to the next sheet. "Your armor, however, doesn't have the same resistance, for some reason. Ah, I see. The life force in you struggles against the life force of this world, but your armor, having no life energy of its own, can be damaged, broken... disassembled. Hm, looks like ShinRa Weapons Development is having a field day." Wedge lunged against the glass. "What!! You bastards are dismantling my armor?!" Hojo peered at him. "I'd say more like 'already dismantled.' The Weapons R&D already has plans for four or five new weapons, ranging from mechanized guards to heavy weapons systems, all based on your... What do you call it?" "Damn you, Hojo. Damn you all to HELL!" Wedge slumped against the glass, groaning, as Hojo walked gleefully away, muttering "Mako resistance... I wonder how far that extends? Perhaps a total immersion in mako..." ***** Wedge stood, trussed and bound, on a catwalk over a vast pit back in Mako Reactor #1. Two guards flanked him, ready to toss him over the edge at Hojo's command. Below him, a lake of a viscous green liquid seethed and frothed. Well behind him, Hojo himself stood, with an abundance of lackeys flurrying about, taking notes and generally making themselves look busy. "So that's mako..." Wedge said. "Indeed, yes!" replied Hojo. "And you're about to witness firsthand the effects of massive mako poisoning. It will be interesting to see which prevails - that mako resistance of yours or the sheer amount of mako in this reactor. Guards, put him in!" The guards grabbed hold of the struggling Wedge's arms and started to lift him over the railing. "Damned Hojo! Pollutin' the Planet with all your experiments! First the Reactor, now this!" This came from a huge man on the far side of the mako well. He appeared totally normal, except that where his right hand did not exist. In its place sprouted a grafted - on gatling gun. "It stops NOW!" He raised his gun - arm and riddled one of the guards holding Wedge with bullets. He collapsed, and the other guard, suddenly overbalanced, dropped Wedge back onto the catwalk. A man and a woman appeared from behind the man with the gun-arm and shot the second guard in the thigh. He yelled in pain, holding his crippled leg. Wedge swept the guard's other leg out from under him using his bound legs, and the guard fell into the mako pit, screaming the entire way. The big man continued to fire, spraying bullets all the way across the well. Hojo's flunkies fled, scattering papers in their haste. Hojo himself stood, shocked. "You! Do you know what you've done! You've ruined the experiment!" "Damn right I have! Jessie, Biggs! Get that guy off the catwalk! Hojo's mine!" The three started across the catwalk, as Hojo slowly retreated, unsure whether to attempt to retrieve his precious specimen or run for his life. Deciding on the latter course, he snarled and hurled a capsule from his pocket to the ground in front of the big man. "Barret, look out!" screamed the woman. The capsule broke open - and two monsters appeared from nothingness. "Jessie! Cut that guy loose an' give him a weapon! Biggs, gimme a hand!" The man ran forward to join Barret, while Jessie cut frantically at Wedge's bonds with her knife. After a frantic few seconds, the bonds parted and Wedge scrambled to his feet. "Here, take this!" Jessie tossed him her knife and drew another from behind her belt. She ran off to support Biggs and Barret, who were hard-pressed by the two monsters. Wedge jogged painfully over, carrying the knife. These people... trusted him. They didn't even know him. Why? "GRUDGE!" One monster fell, eviscerated by Wedge's knife. With one threat eliminated, the Barret and his compatriots easily felled the second, with Barret bashing the monster's "head" in with his gun - arm. The three turned to face Wedge. "Nice work, man! You're pretty good. What's your name?" asked Biggs. "I'm... Wedge. Why did you guys help me? Why did you trust me?" Wedge looked from one figure to another. "How did you know that they weren't just executing me for some crime or something?" Barret looked at him in disbelief. "That's Hojo, you know? He don't do ANYTHING except as an experiment. And anybody who ShinRa don't like, we like, see? So we thought we would do ya a favor and get you out of that bind. " Wedge stared at him. "Who are you guys?" "We're AVALANCHE. ShinRa is suckin' the life outta the Planet with these mako reactors. We were actually here to blow this reactor up, but seein' as you were here, we decided to rescue you instead. We'd better get outta here now, before more guards come. We'll have to blow the reactor another time. Jessie! Get us outta here!" Jessie ran back the way they had come, with Biggs trailing. Barret picked up Wedge and slung him over one shoulder. "Sorry, pal, but this is the fastest way to go. Here we go!" And Barret followed the other two out just as the alarms began to sound. Chapter 4 - AVALANCHE Wedge patted his bulging stomach. Tifa fed him too well sometimes, he thought, but it was most definitely worth it. Sighing, he went back to his room to rest and reminisce. He noticed a ShinRa uniform on the wall of his room - his costume for his first mission. He kept it, for remembrance. It was almost half a year now since he had joined AVALANCHE. They had immediately seen the use for a trained warrior such as himself. And he, bearing no love for ShinRa, eagerly accepted their job offer. Time and again he had proven himself a capable commando and fighter. His first mission upon joining AVALANCHE had been the destruction of the lab containing his disassembled Magitek armor. It certainly had been a wrench, seeing his beloved armor lying in pieces strewn across over twenty tables. It was even more painful as he planted plastic explosives on each of the tables and the main power grid, and he felt his heart break when he pushed the button that set them off. But that was better than knowing that the ShinRa goons had his Tekarmor and were gleaning secrets out of it that they could use against AVALANCHE - against him. They still had gotten plans and blueprints of the armor's physical structure, and they had already implemented several prototypes. The bile rose in Wedge's stomach. He had faced several of these prototypes on later missions - they were weaker than the mighty Magitek armor, but still had some of its strength. Wedge shook his head. No, not now. He wasn't going to worry about this now, and spoil that wonderful dinner that Tifa had cooked for them. As he thought of her, she burst into the barroom, followed by a spiky-haired blond kid with the biggest sword he had ever seen in his life across his back. "Hey, guys! Look who I found! This is my old friend Cloud. We were children together..." Tifa glanced at Cloud for an instant, and Wedge read something... different about that look. "I thought we might give him a job. He needs some money, and we need help. He's got good fighting skills, you know. He used to be in SOLDIER." "SOLDIER? A ShinRa creep!" Barret snarled at Cloud, who met his glare coolly. "We don't want none of their kind workin' for us!" He moved threateningly toward Cloud, who didn't back down one inch. "I have no love for ShinRa either. They... messed with... me. But that ain't the reason I'm here. I need the money. If you can pay me, I'll work for you. If not, I'm outta here." Cloud turned around and started for the door. Tifa grabbed at Barret's arm. "Barret, come on! We can use him! And you can trust him, I'll lay my life on that one." She gazed up at Barret, pleading. "Please." Barret harrumphed and snorted. "All right... ALL RIGHT! You, SOLDIER boy, we'll hire you. One job. Then we'll go our separate ways. And if you do ANYTHING, before, during, or after the mission to betray us to ShinRa, I'll personally rip your lungs out and use them for bagpipes." Cloud looked at him calmly. "Two thousand gil." Barret glared at him balefully. "Huh?" "Two thousand gil. That's how much you're gonna pay me to do this job of yours. You can take it or leave it. " "Why you little ---! That's highway robbery! I could buy half a dozen mercenaries with that much money!" "That's right. But you're buying ME. So you're gonna pay me what I'm worth. Deal?" Barret looked on the verge of tearing him apart them and there, and might have, if not for Tifa. She quickly interposed herself between them, addressing first one then the other. "Deal, Cloud. Barret, it's a deal." Barret glared at her, then at Cloud. "FINE!" he growled. "But let me tell you this, sucker: our next target's Mako Reactor #1. You'd better have the guts to go up against ShinRa's best to pull this one off. We're startin' the meetin'. Everybody get down here!" He stomped off, riding the concealed elevator down to the meeting room. Wedge followed. Mako Reactor #1... ***** Young Cloud proved to be even better than he claimed, even with his reclusive, mercenary ways. Defeating squad after squad of ShinRa troops singlehandedly, and destroying ShinRa's Guard Scorpion with Barret's help, he planted the bomb that ultimately blew the reactor. Wedge had requested rearguard duty, so as not to be haunted by memories of that terrible place. He got them all out before the explosion occured, singing himself somewhat in the process. The mission had been a complete success - ShinRa hurt, and nobody from AVALANCHE lost. On the return to the bar, Wedge expected Cloud to collect his money and leave. Not so: after talking with Tifa for a while, he decided to remain with the group. Wedge tried talking to him, but he was mainly aloof and unresponsive. Wedge shrugged. No matter, as long as he was hurting the ShinRa, he was a friend. Wedge jumped down to the meeting room, noting that he if he wasn't careful he would soon get stuck in the hole. He'd have to lose some weight. "The target is the #5 Mako reactor," Barret announced. He eyed Wedge. "Wedge, go get on the train with Jessie. You guys are goin' first to make sure nothin' goes wrong. Move!" Wedge scrambled out the door, following the much fleeter Jessie. "Wedge, you're going to have to lose some weight!" Jessie yelled back at the puffing Wedge, her lips curving in a smile. "Soon you won't be able to use that famous 'Grudge' attack of yours anymore - it'll be a miracle if you can 'Budge'! " Laughing merrily, Jessie hopped onto the train. Several seconds later, Wedge collapsed onto the floor of the train, wheezing, as the train pulled away from the station. "I'm... not fat... just... tired. I didn't sleep well last night." "Sure, and I'm the owner of the Gold Saucer. Calm down, Wedge, and let's get to work." Jessie went over to the main train computer to input the fake IDs that everyone would use, while Wedge disabled the visual recorders all along the car. They should now be undetected by any sensors the ShinRa could employ. "Done! And I see you're done over there, too, Jessie. Looks like your speed extends to more than running." Wedge heaved a sigh and sat down, waiting for Barret and the others. No more than half an hour later, all of the team was assembled once again. Wedge went to watch Jessie activate the IDs for each person. All of a sudden, though, the alarms went off. Wedge, surprised, looked around - had he missed a camera? Next to him, Jessie swore. "Damn! It's that ID I made for Cloud... I tried to make it extra special, but it looks like it backfired on me. We've gotta get out of here! Come on, everybody!" Wedge, sprinting at top speed through the cars, finally made it to the front car, where he donned his disguise. "It's all right, Jessie," he said to the despondent girl. "We'll get through this one ok. Don't worry yourself about it." She flashed him a quick smile before leaping out of the car. Barret, Tifa, and Cloud followed, and then it was his turn. "Oof!" Wedge strained - but the door had jammed a few inches closed and he was having a tight fit through the opening. He was stuck - and if a pole or something should flash by... "Oof!" This time, he found himself rolling on the floor of the train tracks. Wedge rubbed his behind. Biggs was no slouch when it came to kicking, it seemed. He checked himself and then entered the reactor, scouting ahead for the proper path. Almost at once he stumbled into two guards. They looked at him, surprised. Then they burst out laughing. "Hey, fat boy! How'd you get in here? You look like Palmer's twin brother - but uglier! HAhahaahaa-----ulk!" One guard fell, clutching a throat through which he would never laugh again. The other guard caught Wedge in a full nelson and began to press down. If he didn't stop soon, Wedge's neck would snap... But Wedge dived forward in a somersault, landing on the other guard and knocking the wind out of him - an old trick from his Empire days. The guard tried to stand, but fell to the ground for good as Wedge's knife found his carotid artery. "Don't call me fat, pigf---er." Wedge wiped his knife on the guard's tunic and sheathed it, wondering all the time why he had said that. He continued on, reaching a room with several ladders and pipes. Crawling down pipe, he saw a direct route to the reactor - except that it was swarming with strange monsters. He decided that that wasn't the way to go, and explored the second pipe. This route seemed to be a back door to the reactor - and much less strongly guarded. Just as he returned to the other room, Barret and his group came down one of the other ladders. "Hey guys - this is the way to the reactor. Good luck, I'll see you back at the base!" Barret acknowledged with a curt nod, Cloud not even that. Tifa smiled at him, and entered the pipe. What a wonderful girl. Wedge took off, heading out of the reactor and back to Tifa's bar. ***** Wedge sat with his hands behind his head and his feet propped up on the table. It had been over an hour since the ground had quaked beneath him, signalling the demise of yet another mako reactor. They should have been back by now. Wedge let his feet drop to the floor, and stood up. He'd give them ten more minutes, and then... That "and then" was never realized, as Barret and Tifa burst into the bar. Tifa's face was streaked and dirty, as if she had been crying. "Cloud's gone." Tifa spoke brokenly, and Jessie came over and put her arm around her comfortingly. "We took out a robot soldier... but it blew up the catwalk that Cloud was on and he was hanging on to the edge and I couldn't reach him and...." She burst suddenly into sobs, shuddering with the force of her sorrow. Wedge felt his eyes tear. "Aw, don' worry about him, Tifa. He's a tough cracker. I would bet he's probably off somewhere kickin' more ShinRa butt as we talk. An' speakin' of talking..." Barret glared at everyone. "We learned that some nut called Don Corny or something knows sumthin about why we were caught just now. We need to... talk... to him. You guys understand me?" Everyone nodded. "Now I needs someon' to go in and talk to him. But we gotta do it real quiet, hear? Who's gonna take this one?" Wedge stood. "Any ShinRa flunky that rats on us is gonna find my knife tickling his tonsils. I'll go." "No." This was Tifa. "Thank you for trying to protect me, Barret, but..." She looked at Wedge. "The only one us who can go is... me." Wedge started to protest, but Tifa stopped him. "No... we passed through Wall Market on our way back from the No. 5 reactor. Corneo is looking around for girls... pretty ones. Wedge might be able to get as far as Corneo's mansion, but the thugs Corneo has hired would stop him cold, good as he is. And I'm sorry Jessie, yes you are attractive enough to get in, but frankly you wouldn't know the right questions to ask him to get him to talk. Your talents lie in electronics." Jessie shook her head sadly and smiled in agreement. "So... when do I go?" ***** Wedge stood clenching his fists. The carriage.... no, the CAGE had come not two minutes earlier. Tifa, looking absolutely stunning in a blue dress, had willingly stepped in, and Wedge could do nothing to ensure her safety. He knew she could take care of herself, but he still would have felt safer if someone had at least gone along for the ride. She had even refused a discreet escort - the driver wouldn't have seen him following along behind. However, his fears for Tifa were soon driven from his mind by an even greater danger. "They're hitting the support beam!" Barret ran up to Wedge and the other two. "They're gonna blow it and flatten everybody just ta git to us! We've gotta stop 'em. Let's go!" Barret pounded off, followed by Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge. The situation was very bad. A ShinRa assault chopper was about to land on the top of the support structure, where the destruct controls were. Ground troops and airborne rangers were both securing the tower, and there were a lot of them. Barret roared. "Get 'em!" The four charged the tower. Barret tore apart the ranks on the ground singlehandedly, his gun spitting flaming death. He looked over his shoulder at Wedge. "Hey, speed demon! Stay down here an' keep those goons from sending reinforcements after us." Barret churned up the stairs leading to the top, bowling troopers over the railing in the process. Wedge unsheathed his knife. It glinted in the artificial light of the support beam as another squad of troopers advanced on the stairway, intending to catch the AVALANCHE members in a pincer. "Come on, you ShinRa bastards. Face me. Learn how inferior you are, even to an ex - Imperial Magitek soldier. GRUDGE!" ***** The battle was growing fierce. Wedge had been pushed back two flights of stairs already. While not wounded as yet - his alienness to this universe still held, even after all this time - he was exhausted. Two of his knives had broken and been discarded already, and he was working on a third. Biggs and Jessie both held key points above him, fending off aerial assaults. And Barret, now having to support his gun - arm with his other arm, had already heavily damaged several ShinRa choppers, forcing them to withdraw. But new ones always came, bearing fresh soldiers. One landed near the base of the support, disgorging another attack group. And two fighters still remained from the group before that. And further off in the distance, more figures approached.... wait. Those looked like... "TIFA!" Wedge yelled. "They're hitting the support!" Neatly hamstringing one of the two remaining attackers as he lunged too far forward, Wedge dodged another swipe from the second. Kicking the injured and screaming man from the stair, he blocked a thrust from the other trooper and buried his knife in his eye. Unfortunately, some hidden flaw in the metal caused the blade to snap clean off at the hilt. Seeing the lone defender thus disarmed, the next wave of ShinRa troops rushed Wedge. Tifa and the others, running quickly, could not quite prevent Wedge from being bodily lifted and tossed off the second flight of stairs. "Oh my gosh... Wedge..." Tifa came up. Wedge tried to say he was all right, that he just had the wind knocked out of him, but the words would not come. "Aeris, will you stay with him? Keep him safe..." And with that, Tifa and Cloud ran off to help Barret. Aeris smiled down at him, and started to comfort him. "I... I'm all right, Aeris. Let me up. Go get Marlene - she's far more important than me now." Wedge tried to sit up. Aeris frowned. "You don't look so hot. Are you sure?" Wedge nodded, first uncertainly, then more decisively. "Yes... yes. Go get her and take her to safety, Aeris. And thank you." Aeris looked at him uncertainly, then dashed off to find Marlene. Wedge looked around. The battle seemed to have had passed him by; Tifa and Cloud had joined Barret and were fighting a lone figure atop the tower. Painfully, he got to his feet and looked about for a weapon. He took up a sword from a fallen ShinRa soldier, and as an afterthought, took his armor to better confuse the enemy. He had just started back towards the support structure when a massive detonation shook the ground beneath him. He heard a creaking above him... and looked up. The support had cracked, and the Sector 7 plate was unsupported. He saw Barret, Tifa and Cloud escape on a hook and line out of Sector 7, and was glad they were safe. He looked back up at the plate, which was becoming more and more unstable. "Hojo, now we find out if you're right." Chapter 5 - the End of Time "huhwha? Whaa..t? Where... am I?" Wedge sat up with a start. He had been lying facedown on ... cobblestones? But Sector 7 was paved... "snort... zzz... hm.. hm? Ha! Ah, I see you've awakened," a voice mumbled sleepily behind him. Wedge pivoted quickly, sword in hand. A lone figure, clad all in brown, holding a cane and wearing a dark bowler hat, stood against a lamppost in the middle of... nowhere. Everywhere Wedge looked, a small cobbled area was enclosed by a rail fence, outside of which nothing existed. "Well, well! Another visitor... that makes two! My, this place certainly is becoming busy now." "Who are you, old man? And how did I get here?" Wedge did not lower his sword. The last time he had awoken in a strange place... "Well, this is the End of Time. All roads through time lead here, finally. I am the Keeper of this place. Think of me as your guide through time. As for how you got here, it is because I surmise that you are lost." The Old Man yawned. "I note that you do not have the same temporal structure as the rest of us from this universe. Perhaps you have been... displaced?" "Temporal structure? Hojo! You, old man!" Wedge moved and put his blade against the Old Man's throat. "Wait, you're not Hojo. Who ARE you, and what the HELL does all this temporal / quantum BS mean?" Wedge let the sword fall. "I wish I'd never gone on the mission for that Esper..." "An Esper?!" The Old Man actually began to show some interest. "You've heard of them?" "Yeah, what's it to you? That's what got me into this mess in the first place." "Tell me more." So Wedge related the entire story of his adventures to date to the Old Man. He listened quietly and did not interrupt, watching Wedge intently with his bright eyes. "Hum! Well, you're definitely not lying to me - I can tell that by your posture and your voice. But what a story! Well, I think I may be able to help you with your little dilemma. You see that door behind me?" The Old Man indicated a door in the railing. "There is... someone... in there I think you'd like to meet. Go on, now. I'll still be here after you're all done with him." And with that, the Old Man promptly went back to sleep. Wedge stared at him for several moments more, then shrugged and resolutely went over and opened the door. A little ball of fuzz with eyes stared at him. Wedge stared back. "Uh... hello?" "What? Whatcha lookin at, young'un?" Wedge started. This voice, deep and powerful, resonated from within the ball of fuzz. "Why'd the Old Man send you in here?" "He said I might be able to find out something of why I'm here. You see, it all began when this Esper..." "Hah! What? Did I hear correctly? Did you say.... ESPER?" The little fuzzball bounced up to him and looked at him with beady little eyes. "Now that's I word I haven't heard in a while." He bounded back to the center of the room. "I, my dear friend, am also an Esper. Name's Spekkio." Wedge felt his jaw drop. "You? An Esper? But... really? Can you send me home?" But Spekkio shook his head. "No, kid, I can't. Only the Esper who sent you here can restore you... and that's not likely to happen, seeing as he's not here. What I can do, though, is equip YOU with magic so that you can try to live a little easier in this strange world of ours. How would ya like that, son?" "Me? A Magitek Knight? Wow!" Wedge grinned. "Sure, lay it on me, baby!" He spread his arms. "Let's see... according to what I can see of you... you are... strange." Spekkio frowned. "I cannot see your ability, nor can I give you magic! This is extremely frustrating. Who sent you here, boy?" Wedge groaned in disappointment. "I'm not sure. The Esper we found was frozen in a block of ice. It seemed like a large bird... green, blue, and red..." Spekkio nodded. "That would be Tritoch. You do know why we're all scattered all over the place, right?" Wedge shook his head. "Well, it's like this, see. After the War of the Magi, the Espers split into two factions. One wanted to seal themselves away in a dimension adjoining the one they were currently in. That way, if humans ever learned peace and love, they could return and coexist once more." "The Esper World and the Sealed Gate. Right, right." "The other faction wanted to leave that plane of existence entirely, so there would be no recurrence of the debacle of the War of the Magi. And so they split off and traveled to different universes completely, draining much of their power to accomplish such a momentous task. I was one of those left with some power. Several others who I've heard have also had some power left over were Jenova and Asura - althought I also hear that one misused her power and the other locked her power away in fickleness." "Jenova.." Wedge mused. "That name sound somewhat familiar, but I can't place it. I don't know the other. Go on." "Yeah, keep yer pants on. Anyway, I and several others came here. We thought it would be a good place to live - but imagine our surprise when humans turned up again. Not having enough power left to leave, we split up and went into hiding. One of us burrowed deep under the earth to try to replenish his lost power, I stayed here to become the Master of War, and the third, the weakest of us, took to roaming the earth for his own amusement." "Great," Wedge sighed. "And how is any of this going to help me?" "Well, I'm the Master of War, ain't I? Get off your fat lazy butt and let's spar!" Wedge groaned. Imperial Boot Camp all over again... ***** "All right, kid, show me something new. I've been workin ya for quite a while now. You've gotta have learned something new besides that old Grudge attack of yours." Spekkio had grown as they fought, and now he was a massive blue horned monster that seemed more appropriate to the voice booming from within him. "So, you want to see something all right, old man?" Wedge grinned. It was his way of poking fun at Spekkio for always calling him "kid." "Perhaps I can't cast magic, but I think I've picked up a trick or two from you." Gathering all of his fighting spirit , Wedge channeled it into his sword and flung the blade at Spekkio. Spekkio laughed and caught the blade - then yelped as the sword burned his fingers. "Ouch! Hey, not bad. At least it's an improvement from when you were just giving me a massage with this bread knife of yours." Spekkio went back to the center of the arena and sat down, signaling the end of another practice session. At the End of Time no one got hungry or tired, so sleeping was reserved for boredom. "You know, kid, if we were measuring time here, I think we'd say you'd been here for about three months now. And you're looking a good sight better than you did when you got here." That was true; all of Tifa's cooking had been sweated and worked away by Spekkio's intense training. "I'd love to keep you here for a while longer, kid, but I think it's time you got out of this place and on with your life. The skills you've picked up here will serve you well in Guardia Kingdom. Go talk to the Old Man about it. And anytime you want more training, come back and we'll spar!" Wedge stood up and grinned. "Thanks, Spekkio. It's been fun." He walked to the door and opened it. "Hey, kid, wait. This is for you. You've been a good student. I may not be able to give you magic, but I'll give you the next best thing." Spekkio tossed him a small green stone. "That temporal resistance you have... it doesn't work against magic. You've never faced a magic user, so it's never bothered you before. But now... take it. You'll need it." Wedge turned it over in his hands. "What is this? Materia?" "Not in the sense you know it. This is your fighting spirit, distilled by me out of you during all that time of training, given form and substance by my magic. You know that move you just pulled on me? This stone will amplify your ability to learn and execute techniques like that. Keep it with you. It will also help you build resistance to magic forces. However, there is a downside to this: you must experience and survive low-level magic attacks first, and then build up from there. Well, good luck kid. You may need it." The door shut. "I see Spekkio has trained you well. Now it's time for you to end your journey. You see that beautiful column of light?" The Old Man gestured at a gleaming pillar of brightness extending into infinity. "Step into that, and it will take you where you need to go. Spekkio told you about the other Espers in this world, did he not? I am sending you to the third of them, the one known as Norstein Bekkler. With him, you will find rest from your travels. To return here, anytime, simply return to the place where you find yourself when you exit the column. Best of luck!" And again, the Old Man fell asleep immediately. "Wait! But what will I find at the end?" Wedge asked. It was no use, the Old Man would not reawaken. With some trepidation Wedge approached the column of light. He stepped in. Chapter 6 - Guardia Wedge blinked the purple afterimage from his eyes. He stood in what appeared to be an outhouse - long unused and long unemptied, by the looks and smell. Holding his breath, Wedge stepped outside to get his bearings. He was in a large forest, with a path visible through the trees. Stepping onto the path, he was immediately accosted by a bird wearing a bell around its neck. "What is this, a joke?" Wedge pulled out his sword and slashed at the bird. But it dodged and flew upwards, ringing its bell madly. Several large insects crawled out from the bushes. Wedge cut and thrust at them, but only managed to hit one of the bugs. The creature shook the blow off as if it were nothing. "Will nothing kill these things?" The bird, high above, began ringing its bell again, this time piercingly. The sound was penetrating Wedge's mind, driving him insane.... All of a sudden his mind cleared. Wedge shook his head, wondering at the abrupt change. Then he smiled, and pulled out the green stone that Spekkio had given him. It was glowing faintly. "Spekkio... thanks. I'll remember your teachings." Bringing all of his internal energy together, he focused it on the sword and released it. The sword seemed to catch fire, radiating Wedge's strength from its blade. Yelling wildly, Wedge attacked. The powered-up sword sliced effortlessly through the thick carapace of the insects, and within seconds all of them had perished. The bird, panicking, tried to flee, but Wedge flung his sword after the bird with the last of his energy and neatly bisected the animal. "Hah. Looks like that little gemstone came in handy sooner than I thought. Well, no use hanging aroung here; let's see where this road leads." The road led him out of the forest, and Wedge soon saw balloons and pennants in the distance. "Hmm... looks like a party. And where there's a party, there's people. Maybe one of them will know where Norstein Bekkler is." He continued on, now with a destination in mind. Upon entering the festival, Wedge saw that he was actually in the middle of a small town. The celebrations made it seem much larger than it really was. People were bustling about, with workmen putting up banners and tents and performers practicing their acts. Wedge stopped one of the workmen. "Hey, neighbor. What is all this?" The man looked at him as if he were insane. "Where have you been, on the moon for the last year? This is Guardia's Millenial Fair. Now if you'll excuse me..." With that, the man strode off, vanishing into one of the tents. Wedge snorted. "That didn't help me much." A small boy holding a balloon skipped across Wedge's path. "Hey, kid!" The boy turned around. "Do you know who Norstein Bekkler is?" The boy nodded. "Well? Where can I find him? Where does he live?" The boy pointed to a lone tent across from all the hustle and bustle. Then he ran off. "So... the Esper is there. Let's go meet him." Wedge walked over and entered the tent. A ghostly chuckle greeted him. "Hee hee hee! I'm sorry, but this attraction is not yet open. You'll have to wait... hey, hold on. Did Spekkio send you? Yeah, he must have. He told me no one else would wear such funny looking clothing." Wedge glanced down at the ShinRa uniform. Funny looking? "Anyway, you're here to take a break from all your gallivanting around, aren't you. Well, how about working for me in my booth at this Millenial Fair? It's easy work, and I'll pay you well. I'll also bring you up to speed on some of the customs and culture of this area. How about it?" Wedge shook his head. "That's all? I thought I was going to get some kind of closure here. Thanks, but no thanks. I've got better things to...." He trailed off as a man entered the tent, wearing something that Wedge thought he'd never see again... an old Imperial uniform. "V... Vicks? What... how.