Inn

[lutz]

Lutz apporched Amnesty.
"Its good to see Loz is better but now we must think about getting to the heart of all this...stopping Lucifer...now Abel knows the location of the realm he lives in thats a start, once we are there its a matter of find his hidden base....take a small rest now but we need to leave as soon as possible..."
Lutz turned and walked out the door for his room.

***********************

Abel sat down by the bar area for some more food.
Soon....we have to go back to the Hidden Island...lets hope Samson knows what hes doing...

[Amnesty Lazuli]

Amnesty nodded to Lutz. She spotted Abel seated by the bar for his late lunch and joined him. "Club sandwich," she ordered. "Lay off the mayo."

She grinned tiredly at the lizard seated beside her. "I don't think Cid is ever gonna let us take the Sierra into the Hidden Island. He keeps stalling on us... I think he's afraid he'll damage it by making the dimensional cross. Can we pass through without a vehicle?" It'll be harder in any case-- we'll have to carry all our things, except whatever we can load into my cycle. Thank G** it survived the crash...

[lutz]

Abel nodded.
"Of course I can create a portal to the hidden realm..."
Abel lifted his and sawing off his tattoo, it glew purple and renturned to normal.
"Its just a matter of when you would like to go..."

[Amnesty Lazuli]

Ami smiled, a bit more sincerely this time. The server set down her sandwich on the counter, and she munched thoughtfully. "As soon as we get our cargo back --not to mention my bike-- we'll be set."

****

She let Squall and her brothers have a rest, to recover from the toxin attack. She still felt weakened herself, but now was not the time to let that show through.

Everyone else she put to work, getting the stuff BACK from the Sierra. There was, of course, plenty of grumbling about how they had just finished loading things INTO the Sierra and about how certain people seemed unable to make up their minds, but Ami had countered this by saying she'd get all the stuff back by herself if she had enough arms. She plunged in, too, grabbing some food and ammo to put in her cycle. Her restocked satchel, which now carried the wallet, her maps, her clothes, and the first aid kit, also came along.

The only trouble she had was finding a new weapon-- her Puppeteer sword had been ruined by the fight with Beelzebub. She rummaged through the sniper rifles, assorted swords, and acid pistols until she found a wrapped parcel. Intrigued, she opened it and found two gauntlets inside with curved swivel-lock blades mounted on the outsides, chain mesh gloves accompanying. They almost looked like cutlasses a person could wear on his forearms.

Ami tried them on for size, just for kicks. These are gorgeous. Whose are they? Whoever got these has good taste, I can say that much. She swiveled out the blades-- they locked quick as lightning, solid as stone. The edges of the blades were astoundingly keen and perfectly balanced. I think I'm in love. She spied a piece of paper at the bottom of the parcel and read the scribbling on it.

Ami--

Curiosity killed the cat... next time you spot any mysterious parcels lying around, leave them alone.

Happy belated birthday.

Your brothers

P.S.: We swore we weren't going to tell, but Vincent actually spotted these on the supply run. So make big noise about them in front of him, OK?

Call us crazy, but we think he likes you.

****

She pushed Gunmetal along the frozen streets as the others filed past to get more supplies.

They mostly looked battle weary, as if they couldn't wait for this whole bloody thing to be over. Ami caught her reflection in her rearviews and found she looked no better. "Sorry, guys," she muttered quietly.

Reno, grumbling all the way about a perfectly good waste of time that they could have wasted in much more entertaining ways, got his EMR back, along with Ami's acid pistols. Rude, bearing the entire thing silently, put on the Sacrifice (how it had survived the crash was beyond him) and brought along a sniper rifle. Vincent, of course, retrieved the Cerberus, and Ami's materia pouch.

Ami waited until everyone had gathered their necessities and arrived in the common area. Their hotel rooms had been searched and searched again to be sure they had left nothing behind. The management had protested against her bringing in the motorcycle, but she had assured them she would make it worth their while. She followed through on that, too... she left behind an extra twenty gil with their overnight fees.

Ami approached Abel. "I think it's time to check out."

[lutz]

Abel nodded.
"We need to go to a place private....like one of our rooms...follow me..."
Abel took the group up to him and Samsons room and reviled his tattoo hand, it glew purple, then a purple looking dot appeared that slowly formed into a massive portal.
"You all ready....the Hidden Island known as Quicksand is beyond this portal....its a waste land of desret...."
Abel nodded once more and jumped into the portal being transported. Samson followed.
"See ya on the other side!"
Lutz was the third to apporch the portal.
"May Aztar protect us...."
He took a step into the portal and was to transported.

((to the hidden island))

[matt]

Asuka entered along with Unknown. "Hey, Wher'd everybody go?" She asked. Running from room to room, she found everyone to be gone. "First those boneheads lose track of Shade, and now everyones gone." Asuka entered Bloods room to find some coins on the floor. Picking them up, she placed them into her pocket and continued looking.
Unknown entered Samsons room, and approached the portal. "I think I know where they went." Unknown muttered as Asuka entered the room.

[Amnesty Lazuli]

Though several days had passed on the Hidden Island, it had not been more than eight hours here on Advent. Reno, Rude, the brothers, and all the others emerged in the empty hotel room, which was almost as they had left it... apparently, not even enough time had passed for maintenance to look in on it.

Kadaj spoke almost immediately, taking back the role of leader that he had for some time abdicated. "We can't stay here to wait for Kamen's master to contact us. We need to go somewhere more low profile, less accessible." He decided to give the kid a chance to feel more involved. "Any ideas, Kamen?"

[*~Nikkole~*]

Kamen put up blocks and barriers as soon as he could, giving only a split second to be felt before closing himself off to the best of his abilities. He glanced around before looking to Kadaj. He thought a minute before shaking his head. "You probably know a place better. I can't think of anywhere he would even think about showing at..." That same pressure on his thoughts and the feeling of being watched was back... but it was easier to push away. A lot easier.

[Amnesty Lazuli]

Kdaj shook his head. "We aren't even at that stage yet. All we need to do is find somewhere more secluded to track his mental signature... because first of all, we can't afford a room here for another night, and second, anyone who sees us in this city would sooner kill us than look at us. We'll have to get out of Midgar as soon as we can, of course... the only question is, where will we go from there?"

[*~Nikkole~*]

"Oh... um." He looked around, he hardly went anywhere and hadn't really since before he joined up with the gang. "Is there any run down buildings we could go to? Like in a nearby city??" He had no idea where anything was or even how to get anywhere. He stopped, just realizing something. He would be seen as one of them and everyone would hate him too... wait... he was one of them. He made a face and sighed. Great.

[Amnesty Lazuli]

"Hold on, guys, I got an idea... an idea which involves a great deal of resources which y'all have hitherto been unaware of, yo," Reno remarked c0ckily. He took out of his jacket pocket several valuable-looking stones.

Rude did a double-take. "Where the h**l--"

Reno shrugged. "The guy I was building pyres with said he wanted to give us a reward or something, so I said, cool, whatever, yo."

"You really should have shared that with the others, Reno," Rude reprimanded sternly.

Reno grinned weakly. "I, uh, forgot?"

"Knowing you, that's altogether too likely," Rude scoffed. He took the gems and put them in his own pocket. "We'll sell them off and divide the profits into shares."

Reno groaned. "Aw, come ON..."

"If these are half as valuable as they look, it will still be more than enough reward for us all," Rude cut him off. He held up one of the smaller stones. "We can get transportation out of the city with this... and no questions asked, to boot."

Reno kicked at the floor. "Swell. But I'd like a little more to spare, if you catch my drift."

Rude was already on the hotel room phone, calling up Mishy again. "We'll head to Junon. It'll be the last place anyone will think to look for us."

"Only because we blew up a building there," Reno protested, but it was too late, the arrangements were already being made.

Reno sighed. "Sure, ignore the redhead. What the h**l."

****

Some minutes later, the limo pulled up outside. They made an immediate break for it, before management could stop them to ask funny questions. "Junon Inn and step on it."

"Righty-ho!" Mishy cheered, off and away again.

((To Junon Inn))

[Squall]

Squall sat bolt upright in bed, having had a rather freaky dream, that was a weird one! He ran a hand through his hair, which fell naturally into his trademark curtains as he swung his legs of the bed and and heaved himself to his feet. He walked over to a small bag of belongings on the table hoisted it over his shoulder... Wonder how everyones doing?... Wonder how Amis doing?... He stood motionlessly, deep in thought.

[Amnesty Lazuli]

Someone from the cleaning staff looked into the room and was somewhat startled to see Squall still there. "Oh, Mr. Leonheart... I thought your party had already checked out. In any case, checkout WAS several hours ago, so unless you can pay for another night..."

Where the bag had been, sitting on the table, was a note written on crumpled paper. Someone had left it knowing he would find it there...

[Squall]

Squall gazed over at the hotel staff, not really listening and nodded. Ill be on my way... Squall extended an arm and picked up the note between 2 fingers, beginning to read it as he walked out of his room quietly, " C ya later" he said to the cleaner as he walked out. The note grasped firmly in his hand

[Amnesty Lazuli]

The note read as follows:

Squall--

I finally managed to squeeze out of Vincent where exactly our first destination is intended to be. We're headed towards the airport in Upper Junon to hire out a hovercraft... the hovercraft will be taking us who knows where. I assume someplace on a different continent-- I have a few guesses, but nothing solid enough to tell you for certain. One thing I can tell you for certain, however, is that we'll be in Lower Junon village taking cover until morning because it'll be after dark when we arrive.

I'm sorry we couldn't have had a better goodbye. I want to try again... please meet me there.

I love you.

Amnesty